


Recreating his Legacy

by smkkbert



Series: Old days, new hope [2]
Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, Sequel to Second Chances, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-09
Updated: 2015-07-29
Packaged: 2018-04-08 12:25:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 27,093
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4304994
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smkkbert/pseuds/smkkbert
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Two weeks after Felicity's time travel she tries to find her place in this old but also new world. Easier said than done because with her own version of a crusade she troubles finding a balance with Oliver.<br/>The first ones on the list: of people who need saving: Slade Wilson, Yao Fei and his daughter Shado.<br/>And then there is also this criminal in Starling City...</p><p>Can she manage to find the balance she wishes to have in her life?<br/>And ist she able to save the people on her list?</p><p>You should probably read "Second Chances" before starting this one although the major events will be summarized.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Nervously Felicity tapped the tip of her pen against her desk, her eyes never leaving the list of people on her tablet while her mind tried to go back in her memory as far as she could.

It had been a little more than two weeks since she had traveled back in time. She still couldn’t quite understand how she had come from the cold floor of a cell in Nanda Parbat in 2015 back into her first apartment in Starling City in 2008. It still felt unreal to be 19 years old again and to have just started working at Queen Consolidated, two weeks earlier than in her first 2008 by the way.

It was strange. And weird.

At least she had been able to save Oliver from going on the Gambit just as she had saved Sara and Robert from doing so. Malcolm Merlyn had been killed, the Undertaking stopped which had saved a lot of innocents’ lives. Unfortunately the thought of how she had managed to do that, who she had asked for help to save the them still made her feel sick. She was probably never going to understand why of all powerful people in the world it had to be Ra’s al Ghul who had helped her defeating Malcolm Merlyn.

Shaking her head she focused her attention back on the list. Although she had added more and more names of people she had to ever save since she had started creating the list three weeks back Felicity was sure as hell that she had forgotten someone or rather several ones. Every time she read the list a little bell in her head started ringing, telling her that she had indeed forgotten people who needed saving.

On the top of the list of course were Slade Wilson, Yao Fei and Shado. Since they were on the island right now they were the ones in acute danger. She had already tried to find a way to save them, but hadn’t come up with anything good yet. Every wrong step could mean their death and she couldn’t risk that.

They had been Oliver’s friends when he had been on the island. He wouldn’t have made it out of that hell alive if it hadn’t been for them. They had helped him and protected him and trained him and even if Slade had turned out to be an enemy in the end he had helped Oliver become a fighter at first. So now she needed to save them before Yao Fei and Shado were going to be killed and Slade was going to turn a monster, assumed that he still was going to become Deathstroke even if Oliver wasn’t there to be blamed for Shado’s death.

After she had made sure that they were save Felicity was going to figure out who should be saved next. There was Andrew Diggle and Akio Yamashiro. Those were the two next on the list because just like Slade, Shado and Yao Fei they were connected to people she really loved.

Then there were all the other innocent people who had been killed or who had suffered, people she didn’t feel as connected to as to the ones above, but still knew she needed to save them by bringing down their killers before they were able to kill them. There was Camille Declan for example whose husband had been accused of her murder when it really had been her boss who had done it. Oliver had brought that to light before she had joined the team.

A team would be what she needed right now, she thought with a sigh, holding her pen between her teeth while scrolling through the list once more. She had no idea how she was going to manage that all on her own. She wasn’t a fighter like Oliver had been and-

“Miss Smoak?” she heard and immediately Felicity’s head snapped up, finding a pair of very familiar baby blue eyes looking back at her. “Hi, I’m Oliver Queen.”

His words made her grin like a Cheshire cat and in reaction to the loving gaze she was looked at with her heartbeat started fastening. No matter how often she had seen him looking at her like that by now, she still felt like a nerdy teenager with a stupid crush on the hot Quarterback or something.

Well, technically speaking she was a teenager because her body was that of a nineteen year old, but Felicity’s mind had aged before her time travel and that hadn’t changed after. Besides Oliver wasn’t as much of an adult as he seemed to be either. Sure, he was older than her, but he had just started to grow up, considering his lifestyle had lacked a lot of responsibilities of a normal adult so having a stupid teenager crush like something going on maybe wasn’t as inappropriate as it seemed at first sight.

“Yeah, of course, I know who you are. You’re-“

She interrupted herself before she could babble about the several dates they had had those last days and how they had kissed multiple times and maybe even about how they had had sex not long before he had infected his friends with a deadly virus and she had traveled back in time. But of course Oliver shouldn’t hear about the last of these things because he wouldn’t understand it and her coworker Sally who was observing them from the corner of her eyes shouldn’t know about any of this.

Hastily Felicity reduced the bright grin to a small and polite smile that was appropriate when you met your boss’ son at the office for the first time. After all it had been her decision to keep whatever they had together a secret. At least at work.

“You’re Mr. Queen” Felicity finally finished her sentence, clearing her voice.

It had been the first words she could have come up with and Felicity briefly wondered if she had traveled in time once again and was now in 2012 after Oliver had returned from the island and had asked for her help for the first time, but she knew she didn’t because they weren’t alone right now, Oliver was younger than he had been when she had first met him and he was wearing suit and tie now just like she was wearing something way more sexy that she had at that time.

“No, Mr. Queen is my father” he answered and Felicity needed to bite her tongue to not burst out into laughter, remembering those words from that first meeting, only with the use of present tense now and he didn’t even do it on purpose because he didn’t know anything about all the years she had lived through already before traveling back in time.

“Right, but you’re his son. So you’re a Queen” she said with a polite smile before she really registered the words. “I mean not a queen as in the Queen of England or something. Of course not… But your father is Robert Queen and you have the same surname so you are a Queen. Not that queen, but… I will just stop babble in three, two, one.”

She rolled her lips into her mouth, pressing them together and cocking her head at Oliver who obviously had to keep himself from laughing at her babble. Just yesterday he had told her how much he enjoyed when she babbled which seemed kind of ridiculous since in her mind it was just embarrassing, but Oliver had kissed her when she said that and had repeated the same words again.

Babbles had become worse it seemed. Felicity was scared that she might just say something that didn’t really fit to the time because there were so many little things she didn’t really remember. A few days back Oliver had asked her what movie she had last seen in the cinema and Felicity had to babble ten minutes until she just said that she hadn’t been to the cinema for years and couldn’t even remember the last movie she’s seen then.

One more reason why Oliver thinking her babbles were cute didn’t really make sense.

“I’m having some trouble with my computer and they told me that you were the person to come and see” he said, handing over his laptop to her. “I was at my coffee shop surfing the web and I spilled a latte on it.”

Funny fact about this very different version of 2008 – it still made her feel like she was reliving a lot of things. Of course there were distinctions because she had changed the course of some pretty big events and she had met people years before she had met them in the original run of time, but there were similarities that just couldn’t be ignored.

Only with difficulty she could swallow the words that were right on the tip of her tongue, ready to be said and she lowered her gaze to the computer which indeed looked like it had been bathing in a latte and wasn’t perforated with bullet holes like the first time he had brought her a laptop.

“Poor baby” she sighed and once again her head snapped up. She could feel the heat rise into her face as she looked at Oliver who had cocked his head and perked up his eyebrows. “I mean the laptop… of course. You’re not a poor baby… because you’re not poor… and not a baby.”

The last words were whispered and Felicity wished she could just take the stapler and staple her lips to one another. Optionally she could also sew them now that she knew that that was actually possible, but since she didn’t have the necessary supplies available the stapler would be the better choice for now. Unfortunately doing that would make her coworker Sally only stare more than she did already.

Sally was a nice busy very nosy woman. Felicity liked her although all her talk about possible affairs in the office and especially in the Queen family always made her feel a little embarrassed. Felicity didn’t want her to tell everyone at Queen Consolidated about this and create rumors so she really needed to switch on her brain to mouth filter soon before things could become even more embarrassing than they were already.

When Felicity dared to look up at Oliver once more, she saw him grinning and could tell that he was biting his tongue to be professional and not say something that would be against her wishes of keeping everything a secret for now. Barely controlling his face he turned towards Sally, saying: “Excuse me, I know it’s not your job, but I still can’t find my way through the company so could you please get me a cup of coffee.”

“Yes, of course” Sally hurried to say obviously being charmed by Oliver’s smile and hurried to leave the small office, leaving them alone. Ever since she had known that the young Queen sprout was staring an internship (that had been the official statement, but Felicity knew that Oliver’s job at QC was more to get to know the company, his future tasks and maybe even find something he could work on for the next years) she had been excited to find out if he was going to take a look to the IT department, too.

When Sally was far away enough to not be able to hear anything they said Felicity threw a short glance at Oliver who was still grinning.

“Why don’t you just deliver me from my misery?” she whined, hiding her face in her hands while Oliver just laughed. “Why am I not able to just say a normal sentence like every other person?”

“I thought it was very sweet” he said, stepping around her desk to press a kiss to her hair.

Felicity hastily ducked away. “No kissing at work, Oliver.”

He groaned, sitting down at the edge of her desk while she busied herself with his computer. It seemed like he had more likely bathed it in latte and not just spilled the liquid on it. She could tell from just looking that it was probably destroyed and all she could do was saving the data from the hard drive.

“Could you please explain to me once again why we are not allowed to kiss each other here?”

Felicity glanced at the door, making sure Sally wasn’t on her way back yet and still wasn’t going to hear any of this conversation.

“Because I am new in the company and you are my boss’ son. I don’t want people to think that the only reason I got the job was because I am sleeping with you.”

“We aren’t sleeping with each other so- That was not supposed to be a broad hint” he said hastily when she looked at him. “I understand that you want me to make sure that I figure out who I really am and who I want to be and not just run from one relationship to another. I enjoy spending my evenings with you without sex. I’m just saying that people can’t say you got the job because of sex if we aren’t sleeping with each other.”

“Of course they can, Oliver, and they will” she added with a look at him while working on removing the motherboard from his laptop. “And I don’t want that, not that early after I have started working here and not before we have found out what exactly we are and where this is going to.”

“Okay, then let’s have lunch today and we can define what we are” Oliver said.

Felicity rolled her eyes at him, making him laugh quietly because of course Oliver knew it wasn’t as easy as he had just said. They had just met two weeks ago or at least he had met her two weeks ago and he had wanted to flirt with her and then she had slapped him and then he had wanted an apology. Instead she had given him a mouthful, causing him to cancel his trip with Sara, breaking up with Laurel and accepting responsibilities for his life. He had wanted to go to China with his father, but then the whole crazy thing with Ra’s that Oliver didn’t really know about had happened and they had returned and she had kissed him and ever since they had spent a lot of time together, but still Felicity insisted on taking things slow.

They kind of acted like a couple with their kisses and touches and sweet little messages during the day and the almost domestic behavior when they were at her place and everything, but Felicity hesitated to actually call them anything more than friends. She was in love this Oliver and she needed him close to her which was why she had allowed herself to build anything more than friendship so soon in the first place, but he still had a lot to figure out since he had just started to create a new life and with that a new version of him.

To sum all of that up – things were pretty complicated between the two of them, especially for her since she knew about that past progress of Oliver and what they had had. It was all crazy and none of this was easy. A lunch date wasn’t going to resolve all the problems there were for both of them and considering Oliver’s crunched nose he knew that, too, even if he had no idea how serious the problems there were in the relationship they were working on really were.

After a few moments though Oliver’s lips stretched and his dimples were showing. God, why did his grin have to be so sexy that she felt herself melting by just looking at it?

“I can’t have lunch with you today” she finally sighed with a small smile. “I have to take care of your laptop atop on the usual work I have to do.”

“Dinner?” he suggested.

“Sure” Felicity answered smiling.

There hadn’t been a single evening since the day they had started to watch E.T. with Thea and Felicity had fallen asleep in his arms that they hadn’t eaten dinner together. Sometimes they had been out to small little restaurants, but most of the times he had just come over with take away and they had watched TV while eating or chatted to get to know each other better.

“I would really like to kiss you now” Oliver whispered roughly, making a shiver run down Felicity’s spine. His thumb stroked slightly over her forearm barely touching her at all.

“No kissing at work, Oliver” she repeated her words from before without looking at him.

“I know” he sighed. “I will just have to wait until tonight. How about I’ll take you out to that little Italian restaurant in Orchid Bay I told you about?”

“I’d like that” Felicity answered, looking up to smile at him briefly, but felt her eyes locked on his suddenly. It took her some seconds before she could look away. “Damn, no I want to kiss you, too.”

Oliver laughed at that and was just about to say something more when Sally returned, holding a cup of coffee in her hands.

“Thank you very much” he said to her, took the coffee cup and got up from Felicity’s desk. “I will leave you to your work now. Please just come up to my office if you’re ready with the data, Miss Smoak.”

“Sure, Mr. Que- Oliver” she corrected when he raised his eyebrows at her and he blinked at her before leaving.

Felicity watched him stroll down the corridor. The greatest difference between this version of Oliver and the version she had met after the island was the number of smiles and laughs they showed a day. This Oliver kind of smiled all day and he made jokes and he teased her and he was very sweet and still he was in some ways the same Oliver she had fallen in love with in the first place.

And that made it just harder for her to talk herself out of starting a relationship with him right away. She knew already that she wasn’t going to be able to hold on to her self-control for too long and would probably soon throw away every good intentions she had because fact was that she needed someone in her life to balance the tasks she had decided to undertake from the Arrow and she felt so close to Oliver that-

“Didn’t I tell you he’s hot?” Sally suddenly asked.

Felicity threw her a short look before she shrugged her shoulders and answered: “I don’t know. He’s okay I guess.”

“Okay?!” Sally almost screeched, making Felicity wince and glance towards the door to make sure nobody had heard her. “He’s not just okay, Felicity. And according to the way you practically undressed him with your eyes and babbled like you’ve never said a full sentence in your life, you know that he is more than just okay, too.”

“Okay, maybe he’s hot” Felicity replied, knowing that Sally was going to bug her about that until she agreed, but still blushed at her words.

Sally said some more things Felicity didn’t listen too much to before her coworker headed off to whoever’s office needed an IT specialist.

As soon as the door was shut behind Sally Felicity took a deep breath. She leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes for a second, trying to relax after that short time of exhaustion. She had never thought that working at Queen Consolidated while dating Oliver could be a problem, but it felt like it was. Well, maybe it was less of a problem and more of a very exhausting something.

Shaking her head she grabbed her tablet and opened the file to take another look at her list.

Yes, Slade, Yao Fei and Shado still were the ones to save first and since she hadn’t anyone for field work and even if she had the island was a way too dangerous place to just send a handful of people there. No matter how good they were trained, to fight off Fyers and his people on the island there was an army needed.

And the first thing to find out which army was going to be the best to fight them off, was to collect all possible information about the island, the people that were there and the weapons they had. After that she could decide on how she could go on with that.

Putting her tablet away she turned off some securities on her computer and started to hack into the A.R.G.U.S. server. She soon realized that their servers had much better security than those of the Merlyn Global Group. Of course they had, she thought with a sigh. They were a secret agency that did terrible, terrible things that needed really good security to prevent the state’s enemies from getting even as much as a sneak peek about their plans.

Felicity tried hacking into that server for some more minutes before she closed all windows and gave up. The computer here just wasn’t as good as the computer system she had set up in her apartment after Oliver had helped setting up the furniture or rather after Oliver had set up all the furniture and she had watched the play of muscles in his arms and back. Even if he wasn’t as muscular as he had been after the island his body was still nice to look at. But she was drifting away with that. Anyway, fact was with everything she knew about the future she had been able to set up a pretty good computer system.

Hastily she shook her head to get the image of Oliver’s naked chest out of her mind. She needed to think her plan through if she really wanted to save Shado, her father and Slade. And she did want to.

So after work she would head straight home and try to hack into the server from her computers there. She had done some upgrades, using her knowledge of the future to give her even better technologic equipment. Once she knew what exactly was planned and how they tried to achieve their goals she could decide on what to do.

All of this would be so much easier if Oliver had just told her more about his time on the island. If she knew more about the island and everything going on there she could maybe act sooner. But she couldn’t because Oliver hadn’t talked to her about it.

She knew the pain was going to come even before her chest started hurting. Since she had traveled back in time she had tried to not think too much about her Oliver back before her time travel. The hurt because of his betrayal was still there and it was still deep inside of her, right beside that other spot in heart her that missed her Oliver so much it hurt. So she tried to think less about that and more about this Oliver who had been a jerk at the beginning, but was a very nice and cute guy now.

“Still thinking about Oliver?”

Felicity winced at Sally’s words. She hadn’t heard her return to their office, but now she was there, grinning at her teasingly.

“What?” Felicity asked – a word she had used way too often since her travel back in time because she constantly felt like she lacked some information which should actually be impossible considering that she had knowledge about the future that nobody else had. Nervously she wondered whether she had said something while thinking about Oliver that could have led Sally to the conclusion that she had been thinking about him.

“Well, you smile like a woman deeply in love” Sally grinned exaggeratingly. “I guess Mr.-call-me-Oliver has charmed his way right through to you.”

Felicity stared at Sally for a few seconds before both of them burst out into laughter.

When she had met Sally – in the lack of a better word – originally they had become friends soon. Because even though Sally was nosy and even annoying from time to time she was a really easy person to like. In two months she was probably going to be offered a job in Gotham and would leave to work for Wayne Enterprise at least if things were going to go the way they had before.

“How would you feel about going out for a drink tonight?” Sally asked.

Felicity was about to say yes because she knew that making friends even if it was just for a short of time was probably a necessary thing to do if she didn’t want to cling to Oliver all the time or even worse end up pushing everyone away like her Oliver had done in benefit for his crusade.

She wanted to live up to Oliver’s legacy by recreating it. She wanted to save people just like he had, but she was going to do it her way. She was going to use her own weapons, her technological genius, to find the one hurting people and use her computers to take them out. But the greatest difference between how Oliver had done things and she was going to do them was that she wasn’t going to let her life be consumed by what she did.

Although she knew that it wasn’t going to be easy, she wouldn’t let her will to save people stop her from being with Oliver – if that was what he wanted – and she wouldn’t allow it to take over her whole life, letting it take away the things she wanted to have. She wasn’t going to sacrifice every bit of happiness she could have by that.

“Sorry, I can’t” she replied nonetheless, remembering her date with Oliver. “But we could go to lunch tomorrow.”

Sally nodded. “Sure.”

For a while both of them worked in silence. Working on saving the data of Oliver’s abused laptop – something she was definitely going to say a few things about when they had dinner tonight because abusing laptops like that hurt her deep in her soul – she tried to make out a few more things about how she was going to get Shado, Yao Fei and Slade off the island.

Certainly this was going to be one of the hardest things she would have to accomplish. She had been helping taking out criminals during her work for Team Arrow so she wouldn’t have too much problems to continue that even if she had to do the work alone, but this was something completely different because they were so far away and her opponent wasn’t some poor criminal or whatever, but a whole army.

“Do you mind if I turn on the radio?” Sally asked, interrupting her thoughts. “I can work better with some music in the background.”

“Yeah, music would be nice” Felicity replied without looking up.

What she needed was some kind of easy case to get warmed up or something. Okay, that sounded weird even in her head because this wasn’t sports or something, but still she needed something to… she couldn’t quiet vocalize it, but she needed something that was going to give her back the feeling of what they had done. The last weeks even before her time travel had been very different from the normal night work because with Oliver not being there to help them but instead to fight them they hadn’t had that much time to do actual work against crime and the criminals they had had arrested had been little thieves or something, nothing to be too excited about.

Felicity sighed, making Sally look up, but she just shook her head and nodded towards her computer, rolling her eyes. Sally smiled, believing Felicity was just frustrated about whatever she was working on.

Sometimes she wished that whatever higher powers had sent her here could just give her a sign of what she had to do. Although she didn’t quite believe in destiny and all of that, Felicity refused to believe that she had been send here without any purpose. And if saving people was the purpose for her being here, then those higher powers could at least give her a sign of what she had to do.

“…for the third time in only one week. Until now he has gotten away with stolen goods presumably worth of several thousand dollars. Victoria Dylan was the second fatal victim after Xavier Tompson who had been shot at the second robbery two days ago. At his first robbery a dog was shot while its owners weren’t at home at the time of the crime. Detectives of the SCPD describe the criminal who hadn’t been identified yet as highly dangerous and assume that he will keep robbing private houses. A press conference is planned to…”

Frowning Felicity lifted her gaze to the ceiling almost expecting a golden light shining right on the radio. She had wanted a sign, she thought, and it looked like she had gotten one.

Whoever was planned to be the next victim, she was going to save them.


	2. Chapter 2

Quietly murmuring to herself, Felicity sat behind her desk and made the three displays of her computer system flicker with a bunch of information she was barely able to acquire before they disappeared again. Her eyes felt dry and itchy from all the work on the screen and for the first time since her time travel she had felt the need to put on her glasses. Still she needed to blink repeatedly for her view not to blur.

She couldn’t say how long she had been sifting the data on the servers of A.R.G.U.S. already, but she knew that she had been spending a lot of time on it already. Although she couldn’t really say that she had found much she had at least saved a file with a map of Lian Yu and she had found some kind of data that she assumed listed soldiers that were stationed on the island.

She hadn’t looked through that list till now since she wanted to filter the information she had gotten first. She was still actively hacking in the servers and given that the servers had really good security system – Felicity had found that they had technologies that she hadn’t known before 2010 which had made her wonder instantly what their servers had been looking like in 2015 – she didn’t want to risk spending too much time hacked into their systems and being caught.

On the display to the right she had collected the information about the criminal she had heard of in the radio news. While her computer had automatically worked through some of the security barriers, she had hacked into the police’s server to get some information about him, but had only found that the police didn’t know much about him. So she had left the data on that screen to throw quick glances on them whenever time allowed her to while her focus was mainly on the servers of A.R.G.U.S.

“Got it!” she finally shouted out fist pumping when she discovered several files that looked like they could be useful to work out a detailed plan for her to achieve her goals. She almost turned around to inform the rest of her team until she remembered that she was all alone in this and sighing she shook her head and focused back on the screen.

She copied all of the files to her computers before she erased every hint of ever having hacked into the servers. Blowing a golden strain of hair that had fallen out of the messy bun on the top of her head she stretched her fingers and her neck to get rid of some of the tension in her muscles. Felicity briefly thought about taking a short walk in the park like she had done often since she had traveled back in time, finding that the fresh air and movement had helped to clear her head, but she resisted that urge and instead opened the first file to take a closer look to what she had found.

Ignoring the knock at the door Felicity scrolled through a file full of first unconnected looking letters and signs. It took her some time and a pretty great amount of self-control considering the louder growing knock at the door to realize that the letters and signs weren’t as unconnected as they had seemed at first. Instead they seemed to build some kind of code she couldn’t quite decipher, but at least detect.

She started to let her program to decipher codes of every form run through the file and just as a precaution every other file she had stolen from the servers. Sighing she leaned back when another knock at the door resounded. She discarded her idea to keep ignoring the pungent knocking when it resounded once more, even louder this time.

“Coming!” she yelled annoyed.

With a new sigh she got up from behind her desk and strolled towards the door, glancing at her watch on her way. It was a little after eight p.m. which maybe wasn’t exactly late but still too late for a visitor to just show up without prior announcement and-

“Oh frack!” she interrupter her mental babble as soon as she saw who stood in front of her now open door.

“A little more enthusiasm when you see me please” Oliver replied leaning forward to capture her open lips with his, something that still felt kind of unreal because he did it with a naturalness she had never thought possible.

She watched his eyes travel down and then up her body again when he leaned back, eying up her appearance she know was anything but sexy with the messy hair, the glasses, the yoga pants and her oversized MIT shirt which she knew had several dirty stains on it. Oliver cocked his head and perked his eyebrow.

“You look cute, but not really ready to go out to a restaurant which is fine if you’d rather stay here so-“

“No” Felicity said hastily, shaking her head. She tugged at Oliver’s hand to make him come in and pressed a short kiss to his lips. “I’ll get ready. Just give me five minutes, maybe ten, fifteen at most.”

Closing the door behind them she pushed Oliver to the couch and made him sit down before hurrying towards her bedroom, closing every window on her screens on her way. She didn’t want to risk that Oliver saw any of this because even if he probably couldn’t connect all the stuff going on there, she didn’t want him to ask her about it either.

Trying to get rid of everything she had worked on almost all day, she ran into her bedroom and opened her closet to find something nice to wear. After she had practically forgotten him she really needed to make it up to him by looking fabulous. So she picked a red dress with a deep back cut and hurried to get out of her comfortable clothes to put on the dress instead.

Hurrying to the bathroom to make herself look a little bit more presentable she remembered that Oliver was sitting in her living room, probably disappointed by her lack of excitement for their date. The thought made her regret increase and she bit her lip while combing her hair.

“Have you gotten the laptop I set up for you?” she yelled towards the living room. “I’ve come up to your office, but you haven’t been there and then I’ve wanted to wait, but your father’s assistant said it could take some time so I’ve just given the new laptop to her. Did she give it to you?”

“She did” Oliver replied, his voice not sounding as happy as it could.

“Very brave of you to leave me alone with your laptop especially since you know how good I am with them” Felicity said, hastily applying some make-up to look a little less sick and tired than she had before. “Who knows what I could have found on your motherboard – photos of you being drunk, old fan photos of the Backstreet Boys or even very kinky porn videos.”

She heard Oliver grunt and almost believed that she had managed to get through to him when he proved her wrong by saying in a very sad tone: “You would find out about it anyways one day so why not now? I don’t want to keep secrets from you.”

Felicity felt the pang in her heart at his words. He barely knew anything about her or rather didn’t know her for long because after all the hours spent with each other he probably knew the whole story of her life and about what she liked and disliked and everything. And still his words showed how much he cared about her, no matter the little time he knew her.

Throwing a last glance into the mirror she went back to where Oliver was still sitting on the couch, his head lowered between his shoulders. She knew that that wasn’t exactly all her fault because his work at QC was exhausting, especially since Oliver just wasn’t used to do any kind of work. Still she felt guilty.

She had planned on not letting this happen and not even one day after she had started working on her first names on the list, she was disappointing him and abandoning the one principle she had by letting the list come in between them. Biting down on her bottom lip she put on her high heels and thought about how she could make it up to him.

“You look beautiful” Oliver whispered into her ear when she straightened again. She hadn’t even realized how close he had come to her before he slid his arms around her waist and puller her closer to her back was to his front and he could nuzzle the side of her neck playfully. Obviously his sneaky ninja behavior hadn’t been a result of only the island.

“Thank you” Felicity replied with a smile and turned around to see him smile back at her, even if it was a little sad. “It’s the least I could do to make up to you that I have forgotten about our date because I am really sorry and I am happy you are here and we are eating dinner together.”

“Well, maybe I should let you pay dinner tonight.”

“I offered that already.”

“Yeah…” Oliver loved and put his lips to her ear. “But it’s never going to happen because over my dead body will you ever pay the bill.”

Felicity rolled her eyes. It was kind of charming that Oliver always insisted on paying for their dinner. It might be ridiculous to feel charmed by that, considering how much money Oliver’s family had, but still Felicity thought it was kind of cute of him. When she had offered to pay he had just laughed, but soon added that of course if she insisted she could do it, but she really didn’t have to because it was more gentlemanlike to pay and with all the money his family had it really wasn’t a big deal for him. If she was a strong feminist he would let her though.

Well, Felicity was kind of a feminist like every person should be, but Oliver was right about the fact that he was much wealthier and so she could spend more money on techniques she might need one day.

“I might know a way how you could make it up to me though” Oliver said after some time of silence.

Felicity perked one eyebrow, looking at him expectantly. “Name it.”

“I could use a kiss” he smirked.

“Oh, well, if that is the only way then I will probably have to do it” she said with a played sigh like it was the worst thing ever to kiss Oliver.

“Yeah, I know I am asking much” Oliver nodded still smirking.

“If that is what it takes” she said with a shrug of her shoulders, got up on her tiptoes and pressed a quick kiss to Oliver’s lips, letting hers barely touch his before she pulled away again.

Oliver laughed, putting his hands on her hips to pull her back closer again “That wasn’t a kiss Felicity.”

Felicity joined into his laughter before she put her arms around his neck and kissed him. This times their lips stayed locked to one another’s. Oliver stepped even closer while simultaneously pulling her more into his embrace, bringing their bodies flush against each other’s. She could feel his heart beating against her ribs when he bent her head to deepen the kiss. His lips opened and his tongue slid along the seam between her lips, begging for entrance Felicity gladly let him have.

Kissing Oliver had become even better since her time travel. There were an easiness and naturalness in their kisses that hadn’t been there before. There was no pain of not being together like in their first kiss in the hospital. There was no knowledge of not having enough time with one another like in that room in Nanda Parbat and there surely wasn’t the fear of never seeing each other again like there had been when they had said goodbye or rather not have said it in Nanda Parbat.

When their lips parted, their foreheads stayed in touch. Both of them were breathless, the heat of their kiss now spreading all over their bodies. Felicity was almost certain that her face was all red, but she couldn’t care less in this moment.

“You are forgiven” Oliver finally murmured, pressing a kiss to her cheek and taking her hand. He entwined their fingers when he opened the door with his free hand. “Now let’s go before they a giving our table to someone else.”

 

 

They didn’t give their table away. Of course they didn’t because having Oliver Queen dining at their place seemed to be a great honor to them. Something she could only roll her eyes about which had made Oliver laugh. He had given the waitress that had seemed to care very much about their wellbeing, turning up at their table every few minutes to ask if there was anything she could do for them, a big tip.

Still their dinner had been nice, more than nice actually. Felicity hadn’t realized how much she had needed a rest from working on her computers until she had sat down on the little table in the restaurant, skimming through the menu full of the best delicacies. She had been tired and starving and enjoying an Italian dinner like they had planned for their original first date had been great. This time they had even come around to eat it.

The two of them had sat in the restaurant until the waiters had asked them to leave since they had wanted to close. So they had left and now they were enjoying a walk in the fresh night air, holding hands while chatting lightly about nothing in particular.

Even though she was tired and felt like she needed to sleep very soon Felicity didn’t want to leave already. She wanted to stay with Oliver. Having him close was the only thing that didn’t make her feel as lost here as she felt most of the time. He was reminding her of the fact that she had a life that didn’t have anything to do with her computers or the kind of crusade she had started.

She watched him closely while he talked about some baseball game he had watched with Tommy not that long ago and how it had ended with them stealing a taxi which he was kind of embarrassed of now. Still he laughed while telling her the story and it warmed her heart seeing him like that. Back before her time travel she had never seen Oliver that much at ease.

The longer she kept watching him, the more she realized how much more she fell in love with him with every minute spent with him. She was really in love with him and not just because she had loved him a few days back in 2015, but because he was a great guy with a good heart and he was funny and-

“Do I have tomato sauce in my face?” Oliver interrupted her internal ramble about why she was in love with him, looking at her in question.

“What?” she asked, blushing at the realization that she had actually stopped listening to his story.

“You are staring at me” Oliver grinned. “And since I didn’t want to sound snooty by just say that it is because of my good looks, I thought I’d ask if there was any tomato sauce in my face. That would be a good reason to stare at me beside my good looks.”

Felicity snorted and boxed Oliver playfully in the side, making him laugh. He stumbled two steps to the right before hurrying to her side again, putting one arm around her shoulders to tug her closer. He placed a gentle kiss to her temple.

“I’m glad we had dinner together tonight” Felicity explained, leaning her head to his shoulder and slid her arm around his waist. “My head feels cleared now.”

“Lot of work to do?” he asked, lips still touching the side of her face.

Felicity nodded, silently wishing she could tell him what she was working on, but of course she couldn’t. If Oliver had told her from the beginning what he had done she wouldn’t have helped him probably. She had always known that he wasn’t telling her the truth, but she had also known that he had been a good guy with a good heart. He still was now and here, but trusting him with her secret was too soon. She wouldn’t have trusted him enough to keep that for herself back then either. It would have been too soon then and it was too soon now.

Maybe someday, but probably never. She didn’t want him to get into this. The less people knew about this the better. Considering how many people had tried to help Oliver in 2015 and how they had all ended up in that cell in Nanda Parbat or shot full of arrows by his enemy or were killed and brought back to life – she didn’t want that to anyone. So she was going to do this on her own.

At least for now.

“You know, there was this guy who spilled a latte on his laptop” she replied with a slight sigh, smiling to herself.

“Idiot” Oliver grunted.

“Exactly what I thought” she yawned. “I don’t get why people treat laptops like that. It hurts me deep in my soul.”

“I could comfort you” Oliver offered.

Felicity laughed lowly, yawning again before she asked: “Any plans for tomorrow?”

“I’ll spend the morning with my dad. He wants to talk to me about some plans he has for charity work in this city. He said with all the crime in the Glades and the poverty of the people there he feels like it is his obligation as someone who has a lot of money and a lot of political influence to do something about that.”

“And what is he planning on doing?” Felicity asked, trying to make it sound casually, but internally being all alarmed. The last time Robert had been part of a plan to stop the crime he had been working with Malcolm Merlyn, intending to destroy the Glades.

“He said he wants to donate money to the schools, giving the children better education and establish scholarships to help them to go to college. At least that is his first idea, but he wants to work on more and try to win some of his equally wealthy friends to join him. He said maybe they can really change something.”

Felicity quietly nodded to herself. She was going to keep an eye on that because from what she knew Malcolm Merlyn’s plan hadn’t started with the Undertaking either. There had been something less horrible he had planned originally and yet it had turned into the brutal killing of 500 people at least in the original flow of time. She was keeping an eye on the people that had been engaged in the Undertaking anyway so she was just keeping an even more vigilant eye on Robert.

“He’d like you to come over for dinner soon by the way” Oliver added after a while since Felicity didn’t make any move to say something. “I guess he wants to celebrate your good influence on me.”

“Are you sure he doesn’t just want to make sure that I am not ensconcing myself in your family to spend all your money on plastic surgeries?”

“That would be my mother” Oliver laughed.

“Right” she nodded, remembering way too good how Moira had looked at her when they had made a short visit at the mansion last week because Oliver had forgotten his wallet. “She doesn’t exactly like me, I guess.”

No matter how often time turned back some things would never change.

“She will like you” Oliver promised, kissing her softly on her lips “as soon as she is convinced that you are not a gold digger.”

“In that case all I have to do is wait I guess” she sighed.

“You could spend more time kissing me to convince her” Oliver suggested with a smirk, leaning down to capture her lips once more.

Felicity hummed against his lips, straightening to her tiptoes to stay in the kiss longer and to savour the feeling of his lips on hers. Sighing Oliver opened his mouth for her tongue to swipe in and her whole body melted against his.

“Are we going to have dinner together tomorrow as well?” she asked when their lips parted and she shrank a few inches when she got back on her whole feet again.

“I’ll come by when I’m back from Tommy and bring Chinese?” he suggested.

“Very attentive” she smiled, kissing him again. “You’re sure Tommy won’t need you? A few days ago you said he is still in shock because of his father’s death.”

Even the thought of that still made Felicity’s stomach hurt. She had orphaned Tommy in some way, even if he had never had a real father, at least not after his mother’s death.”

“Tommy is way better now” Oliver assured her. “Yesterday he told me that he had decided to open a club. With all the money he had inherited from his father and the fact that I as his best friend start to become an adult he feels kind of obligated to do something more than parties and girls as well. Speaking of girls, there seems to be something going on between him and Laurel by the way.”

Felicity perked her eyebrows. “Really?”

“To what part of what I said?”

“To both of them” Felicity answered with a grin.

“Laurel and Tommy have met several times for dinner and he made a few comments about how a friendship doesn’t have to end when the one guy dates the other’s ex-girlfriend, especially when the guy is the one who broke up and the guy is happy with a different girl now and so on. He has been trying to be casual about it, dropping a sentence every now and then to not make it sound like there was something going on, but I think they might start something.”

“And you’re okay with that?” Felicity asked frowning.

“Tommy is my best friend and even though I have been a bad boyfriend I still care about Laurel and I want her to be happy. If they find in each other what I have found in you then I am happy for them.”

“And the club?”

“We will go visit some possible locations tomorrow. He seems to be serious about it.”

Felicity nodded. So now Tommy was opening a club and asking Oliver for help. Why not? It made sense since Tommy had been the one managing Verdant in the first place even when it had been Oliver’s club.

“Have you taken in consideration to rebuild your father’s old factory in the Glades and open a club there? It certainly will be a cool location” she suddenly heard herself saying.

“You have been to my father’s old factory?” Oliver asked cocking his head.

Yes, she had been there because she had worked in the basement of that building for years and a few days back the League of Assassins had taken her hostage there. So yes, she had been there probably more often than he had right now.

“No” she answered nonetheless since she couldn’t tell him any of that. “But I have seen plans of the building and I have a great vision which is why I can picture a club in there. Might be cool, don’t you think?”

Oliver frowned for a few more seconds before he places his hands on her shoulder and said: “Felicity, you are remarkable.”

“Thank you for remarking on that” she replied, straightening to kiss him once more, but pulled back when she had to yawn. “Sorry, really tired.”

“In that case you should go to bed and I’ll come by after-“ he interrupted himself with a frown. “How about you join Tommy and me?”

“If he is okay with that, sure.”

“Great. I’ll come get you at six, okay?”

Felicity nodded and Oliver leaned down to give her one more kiss before they whispered their goodnights. They parted, but when Felicity turned around at the door Oliver was still standing at the same spot, watching her with a smile. She smiled back at him, opened the door and stepped into the house.

Yes, the evening had been great and exactly what she had needed to clear her head. She felt tired and yet full of energy. Choosing to stay close to Oliver had been the right choice, even if she couldn’t be all honest to him, she thought while climbing up the stairs to her apartment slowly.

Yawning she opened the door. The inside of her apartment was almost all dark. The only light was coming from her computers. She massaged her stomach where it suddenly hurt slightly, turned around and went to the bedroom. Checking the results of her hacking was going to be the first thing in the morning. She was just going to get up earlier than usually to work on that.

She really needed to work on that. Slade, Shado, Yao Fei and all the others on her list were still in danger. And she was the only one who could save them. She had to save them. Before it was too late.


	3. Chapter 3

Felicity stared at the ceiling of her dark bedroom, trying to hypnotize herself with the lights dancing there, shining from down the street. It was her last glimpse of hope after turning from one side to the other for hours and counting a thousand sheep hadn’t helped her.

At the beginning she had thought that her busy day was the only reason for why her body seemed to refuse to fully relax and let her fall asleep although she was more tired than she could remember in a long time. With all her work behind the screen, the excitement at hacking the A.R.G.U.S. server and her date with Oliver it wouldn’t have been a surprise if her body were so full of adrenalin and other hormones that she just couldn’t sleep.

But Felicity knew it wasn’t just that. The slight pain in her stomach had become full stomach cramps. No matter how much she kept massaging the skin under her dirty sleep shirt, the cramps just wouldn’t go away and Felicity knew why. They weren’t a symptom of a food poisoning or any other possible disease. Instead they were a symptom of her guilty conscience.

She had spent all evening with Oliver, laughing and chatting about nothing in particular, enjoying the fact that she could do that – just spend her hours eating a nice Italian dinner in a nice, little restaurant with someone she loved. She could do whatever she wanted because she was safe and free.

Unlike Shado, Yao Fei and Slade who were on that island, fighting for their lives. Before her time travel Felicity had seen Oliver’s scars and even if not all of them were a leftover from the island he had gotten his first scars there. Shado and the others probably had to live through the same things he had to live through. It had changed him and it was going to change them. She couldn’t just hope that Slade and Yao Fei were able to get to that plane as they had planned – one of the little things she knew from Oliver about the island. Every second she spent enjoying the life that was given her and ignoring the obligations she had accepted, she was causing the three of them to suffer.

Felicity had never quite understood why Oliver hadn’t been able let go of the crusade he had imposed himself for even a minute. Now she was slowly starting to understand. It was more than a crusade or something. It was so much more than just that. It was an obligation and a burden and a responsibility that reached deep inside of one’s heart.

Part of her had always thought that Oliver just hadn’t tried hard enough to accommodate an at least to a certain degree normal life and his work as The Arrow. She had thought that he had just been too afraid and hadn’t trusted anyone enough to let them fully into his life and that maybe he had even tried to make it easy for himself, concentrating on just one part of his life, his crusade.

That had been the reason why she had wanted to make things different. She had wanted a real life besides saving people, she still did.

But what had she achieved so far?

Well, she was in some kind of relationship with Oliver and it was great. Just that she had managed to forget their date the first day she was working on something more than her QC IT job. And in all her effort to make that up to him she had asked him for a date tomorrow evening when she had actually agreed to go enjoy some drinks with Sally.

So to sum everything up: she was screwing up on both sides of her life, the official and the secret one.

Groaning Felicity pushed her blanket away and got out of bed. She wasn’t going to get any sleep anyways so why not spending her night with something more useful than lying in bed and feeling sorry for herself. It wasn’t going to make things better for her or anyone else.

She tiptoed through her dark apartment, not caring to switch on the lights since her eyes were used to the dark from her hours of staring into it. Aside from that she had started to memorize most things about her apartment again. She knew where the little edges were where she had stumbled against far too often back when she had lived here for the first time and so on.

So Felicity managed to get to her computers and start her system without any too bad injuries. While the server started she tiptoed to the TV and switched it on. No matter how much she had gotten used to being back in 2008, she just couldn’t get used to the silence in her apartment, proving to her how alone she really was in this world.

When she found the news channel she increased the volume and watched interestedly as a slightly younger version of the Captain or still Detective Lance for now was shown.

“...only assume that it was the same perpetrator as in the three past robberies. To be sure about that we will have to wait for the results of our Crime Scene Investigation team and our technical analysts that are now checking the video material we gained from the observation cameras. Until then I am not authorized to answer any further questions.”

As Lance disappeared behind the crime scene tape, a young woman stepped into the view, holding her microphone with slightly shaking hands as she summed up the same information Felicity had already heard in the radio news on the man that had killed two people and a dog within the week, now added by not less than three people he had killed a few hours ago in a little kiosk just three streets away from Felicity’s apartment.

Cursing she switched off the volume and threw the remote into the cushions of her couch while stalking to the chair behind her computers, sitting down and starting to type rapidly on her keyboard, using that much force that she wouldn’t be surprised if she broke it.

She should have known sooner. It would have saved people’s lives if she had just sat down and tried to concentrate on remembering who that guy was. She should have spent every waking hour on reactivating her memories on every major crime that had happened ever since she had come to Starling City and she should have-

Shaking her head she chased off any thoughts of that. Yes, she had screwed up with this because she hadn’t remembered who that guy was until now, but she was going to make up for that by helping the police to catch him and by learning from her failure to save more people in the future.

Her self-pity wasn’t helping anybody. It could probably become her new life motto.

Before she had worked with Team Arrow she hadn’t cared too much for the crime in the city. Surely she had seen the news because unlike her mother she always cared for being informed about what was going on around her, but she hadn’t been as invested to it as in the years she had helped to take the criminals out. So of course she couldn’t have remembered who that guy was, especially since Starling City had been so full of criminals lately.

But of course the news of people having been killed not far from her home had triggered her memory, especially since the guy had dissociated himself from the usual pattern of only breaking into private homes. She remembered that it had been the first major crime she had heard of in Starling City and she remembered wondering whether Starling City really was a much safer place to live in than Las Vegas had been because that had been what she had thought prior. Felicity knew already that the police wasn’t going to find any DNA on the crime scene and the video tape was found to be almost completely destroyed, the images not going to tell them who the perpetrator was. Instead it was going to take five more lives before the police would catch him and the only reason they were was because of a speed trap and the searching of his car that was followed by it. They would find the stolen goods and the weapon he had used on his victims there.

At least that had been the way things had been going before Felicity’s time travel. This time she was going to do whatever it took to prevent that anyone else was going to die.

Thanks to the bad computer security he had it probably wasn’t going to take too long for her to do so. Within seconds she had managed to hack into the guy’s computer and was now searching through his files for anything useful to be found. She remembered that the guy had been keeping some kind of diary of what he had been doing. He had used it to reflect on how his crimes had been going and what he needed to change to have more fun or something like that. One of the local newspapers had published excerpts from that diary, but Felicity hadn’t read them. Even the thought of doing so made a shower run down her spine.

But now she had to check his files and at least skim them to make sure she had found the diary. For now she was just scrolling through a endless number of porn videos, most of them being of fairy tale themes that made her stomach flip since Felicity loved reading and watching fairy tales and reading those titles were actually not make it easy to find any good in the original stories anymore.

She didn’t know how long it took, but she finally found the file where he had reflected on his experience in robbing and killing people, including plans on how to go on and what to do to become even better, just like the media had announced when they had found him back then.

Felicity organized the data so the police officers were going to get the message easily when they read the mail she was setting up for them. She didn’t want anyone else to be killed just because some officers or detectives or whatever were too lazy to read the whole bunch of information she was going to send them. Her finger was hovering over the enter key, ready to push it and send the mail away, but she hesitated.

What was going to keep the police from just deleting this or any other mail she was going to send them in the future? The police surely wasn’t following every anonymous hint they got, especially not if it was sent from a mail address that could not be retraced to a place that made sense to give any information. Felicity had arranged everything so the mail could only be located to somewhere in Europe or Asia or sometimes Africa, at least far away from here. The police might come to the conclusion that someone was playing games with them and then she wouldn’t have any possibility to help them.

So what Felicity needed was some kind of symbol that was going to attach the mails to the same person. They had followed her mail when she had informed them about Merlyn’s plan so they might follow this mail and if she started using a sign of identification to make clear it was her, the police might gain trust in her as a reliable source of information.

She might be grasping straws, but it was at least worth a try, Felicity thought, already setting up everything to create her own symbol or at least it was partly her own since the idea was more or less borrowed, but using a green arrow seemed to be the right choice. After all she wouldn’t be doing any of this if it wasn’t for Oliver who had started this a long time ago. She had taken up his legacy, a legacy only she knew about, and although she did things probably a lot different than he had, she was at least going to honor his idea of saving the city by using his name even if nobody but her would ever understand this.

Sending the mail away she leaned back in her chair with a sigh and sent a silent prayer to heaven that the police was going to follow the lead she had given them and that her idea of creating a new version of Starling City’s hero the Arrow was going to work the way she imagined it.

Felicity took some seconds to just close her eyes and take deep breaths, feeling her stomach cramps ease off slightly since the first of her worries was taken care of now. Her concern about not being able to save Shado, Slade and Yao Fei was still left though.

So she straightened once again and bent her head to both sides to stretch her neck before she started to get back to work once more, this time sifting the data she had gotten when she had hacked into the A.R.G.U.S. server. Thanks to her program they were now deciphered and all she had to do was find out what of those things was going to help her to save Slade, Shado and her father.

 

 

“What do you think? Great spot for a night club or what?” Oliver asked, opening the gates to the old QC factory and stepping into the dark hall with Tommy and Felicity following him.

“Sweet” Tommy replied, turning to all sides to take in the huge room.

“Private office” Oliver suggested, pointing his finger out to somewhere in the dark where Felicity knew the office of Verdant had been. “For the private one-on-one meeting, I would imagine.”

“Hopefully the occasional two-on-one meeting” Tommy added with a smirk, looking at Felicity in apology. “Sorry.”

She shrugged her shoulders with an unsure laugh. “Nothing to apologize for, I guess.”

Oliver reached out his hand for her to take and she did, immediately being tugged closer to his side so he could press a kiss to the crown of her head, apologizing for his comment just as Tommy had done.

“It’s just a comment and I’m not a little girl” Felicity replied in a whisper, making Oliver grin. “I know a few things about those meetings.”

“You do?” he asked, lowering his head to slide his lips over Felicity’s, kissing her softly.

“Hey, guys, boundaries please” Tommy said and Felicity hastily stepped away from Oliver, walking around the room like she was taking everything in and envisioning a night club here when really she already knew what everything could look like.

Felicity was tired. She had spent all night looking at what she had found about the island. The data were good, like really good. They were exactly what she needed, but she had no idea what to do with them. She couldn’t just send them to the police because they probably weren’t authorized or able to do anything against that army on the island. And Felicity somehow doubted that the League was going to help this time.

She felt Oliver’s gaze in her neck and turned around to him, mouthing to him that he should concentrate on why they were here instead of staring at her as if they were all alone. With a wide grin in his face that made her blush he turned towards where Tommy was standing.

“Man, are you sure you want to do this? It’s not like you really have any experience in running a… well… running anything.”

“You started working in your family’s company and you don’t have any idea of what it means to run anything either” Tommy answered. “Besides, at least I have the knowledge of what it takes to make a club cool and I know all the tricks people use to get into a club even if they aren’t supposed to be in there.”

Oliver laughed grunting while Tommy grinned at him. They were definitely sharing a memory without saying a word and given the expressions on their faces they seemed to have had a lot of fun with it. It was nice seeing them like this, Felicity thought. She wished she had had a chance to be friends with Tommy before her time travel. She already had the feeling that she was going to like him.

When she looked away to let those friends have their moment, Tommy made two steps into her direction, stopping right at her side and putting one arm around her shoulders.

“Did Ollie ever tell you about the night of the opening of that private club… What was the name again?”

“Tempest” Oliver answered, putting his hands into the pockets of his jeans and leaned on one of the filthy walls.

“Tempest! Right!” Tommy nodded, winking at Felicity. “So we wanted to go to the opening party that had a very limited guest list we weren’t on.”

“What? You weren’t on the guest list?” Felicity asked laughing. “Who the hell would do that?”

“The guy whose daughter I slept with” Tommy answered, only shrugging his shoulders when Oliver’s accusing gaze met him. “Anyway, we were there and the guy at the door refused to let us in because we weren’t on the list. So we raised hell, telling them that we would call the media and telling them that we weren’t let in although we were Tommy Merlyn and Oliver Queen. He still didn’t want to let us in so we actually had to call the press or at least a college girl I’ve been sleeping with” – again Oliver gazed at him annoyed – “who was serving an internship at the newspaper at that time and she acted like she was interviewing us and guess what? We were let in within seconds and the guy at the door was fired. Every story needs a fall guy.”

“It was nice evening” Oliver added with a nod. “Although I feel kind of embarrassed about the fact how we got into it now, especially because that guy lost  his job because of us.”

Felicity sent him a comforting glance. Oliver had stated more than once during their date nights that he felt embarrassed about who he had been and what he had done before they had met. No matter how often she had told him not to be embarrassed to be any of that because really there was no reason for that, he had stated it again and again.

“Well, at least you know the tricks” Oliver said after some time.

“I know the tricks” Tommy nodded. “So, Felicity, if you ever need to do someone who depends on the opinion of the press to do anything they don’t want to do for you, just threaten them with the media. They are going to do everything to reduce the damage you might cause, no matter if they like it or not.”

Felicity laughed lightly. “So you’re saying if I ever want Oliver to I don’t know… maybe strip for me, all I have to do is telling him I’ll call the media and blurt out all his secrets.”

“You could also blurt them out to me” Tommy suggested. “I’m sure we would make a pretty good team.”

“Okay, that’s enough” Oliver intervened before his best friend could win her over to his side. Hastily he went over to the two of them and tugged at Felicity’s hand for her to come closer to him again, putting his arms around her waist and pulling her into his embrace. “Don’t let Tommy get you into mischief.”

“I’m sure she’s getting into mischief herself” Tommy said. “She’s smart.”

“She is” Felicity heard Oliver reply, a slight pride in his voice, pressing a kiss to Felicity’s hair. “A lot smarter than the two of us actually.”

“Hm…” Tommy hummed, nodding while eying Felicity up. “Okay, Miss Supersmart, how about you come up with an idea of a name for this baby. And please be a little bit more creative than your boyfriend here. His ideas included The Court, Sinister and Afterlife and those were his better ideas.”

“According to the fact that your ideas were Pulse point and SCPD for Starling City Party Department I don’t think you are allowed to make fun of me” Oliver replied before looking at Felicity. “Come on, save the day and tell us the perfect name.”

“I’ve come up with a perfect location. I think I’ll leave the choice for a name up to the two of you” Felicity laughed.

“Come on, Felicity” Tommy didn’t give up. “You have to have some idea. You can’t just come up with a location without having a general idea in the back of your mind.”

“No, I really don’t have any idea” Felicity tried to avoid making a suggestion.

She didn’t know why but somehow she was scared of leading too many things the way they had been before her time travel. Maybe she just didn’t want to be reminded on what she had lost in that old life and start to really build something new here without being reminded of her life before. Or maybe she was even scared to make time repeat itself if she kept making things happen again.

“Tommy, leave her alone” Oliver finally said, shaking his head at his friend.

“Come on, Felicity, just one name” Tommy requested nonetheless.

“How about Verdant?” Felicity asked before she could stop herself.

Both, Oliver and Tommy, looked at her frowning before asking in chorus: “Verdant?”

Felicity shook her shoulders. “You said any name and Verdant it is.”

Tommy and Oliver looked at each other in question and both shrugged their shoulders before Tommy said: “I guess I don’t have to decide on that today.”

“Right” Oliver nodded, winking at Felicity.

Maybe they should do that more, Felicity thought. It was fun, chatting with both of them and listening to stories of Oliver and Tommy, stories she wished her Oliver had told her back before her time travel. Back then the memories of party nights had been shadowed by the memories of what had happened to him in Hong Kong which was why he had told her of that instead of memories of Tommy when they had been on their first date. She had already known a few things about the island at that time and…

Felicity frowned. Backing off from Oliver slightly she froze and recalled the words Tommy had just said. _So, Felicity, if you ever need to do someone who depends on the opinion of the press to do anything they don’t want to do for you, just threaten them with the media. They are going to do everything to reduce the damage you might cause, no matter if they like it or not._

Chances this was going to work for secret agencies like A.R.G.U.S. might not be too great, but giving the information she had hacked from their servers to the press was going to cause a scandal of worldwide magnitude. The government was sure as hell going to prevent that those information were published. Felicity had no idea whether Amanda Waller was acting on her own with what she did on the island or if her superiors knew about what she did which Felicity doubted actually, but knowing something yourself and having everyone else know it were two different things.

So what if she mailed the information to the U.S. government and informed them about what Amanda Waller was doing? If they didn’t want the whole world to know about that they would have to do something and if she did it right, she might actually be able to convince them that they could turn the story around to their advantage, making themselves the saviors instead of the bad ones.

“Fe-li-ci-ty” Oliver’s soft voice got through to her and she realized that he was waving his hand in front of her eyes. She had to blink repeatedly to completely be back in the present. When she did Oliver was smiling at her. “Where did your mind go?”

Far, far away, Felicity thought, but instead shook her head and smiled.

“I just got an idea and that means that-“

“You have to go” Oliver finished her sentence with a sigh, leaning down to kiss her shortly. “Go!”

“You’re not mad?” she asked, knowing that she had already disappointed him when she had forgotten their date last night and had canceled the date they had planned for tonight because of her drinking date with Sally.

“Go before I make up my mind” he laughed with a grin. “Want me to take you home? We’re in the Glades and-“

Hastily Felicity straightened up to her tiptoes, slid her arms around his neck and pressed a dozen sweet little kissed to his cheeks and mouth.

“You. Are. The. Best. And. Don’t. Worry. About. Me” she said, pressing one more kiss to his lips with each word. “Breakfast tomorrow?”

“I’ll come get you at ten?” he suggested and she nodded.

Kissing Oliver one last time she turned around to Tommy and pressed a kiss to his cheek.

“See you soon, Tommy!” she yelled over her shoulder while she was hurrying towards the exit already.

“See you, Felicity!” Tommy shouted after her. “And thanks for the idea for the location of the club!”

“Always!”

“Maybe you can come up with a better name in the near future!”

“How about you try thinking about that yourself?” she answered laughing, stepping out into the blistering sun.

Finally she knew what to do to save Shado, Yao Fei and Slade.


	4. Chapter 4

Sipping at her coffee Felicity leaned back in her chair and read the lines she had written in that nice mail the US government was going to receive along with some of the protocols from the island, leaving no doubt that she knew what they were doing there and that she was going to send all of this to the media if the innocent people on the island weren’t let free within the next 48 hours.

Felicity didn’t care that Slade, Shado and Yao Fei were probably hidden somewhere on the island and whoever was going to save them needed to catch them before they could send them back to their homes, but that really wasn’t her problem. She wanted them to be safe as soon as possible. A.R.G.U.S. had gotten itself into that mess, now they needed to get themselves out of it.

She also didn’t care too much about the snippy tone of her mail since she was that tired right now she could barely keep her eyes open. So she just read through the mail twice more, put the image of the green arrow beneath the lines and pushed the enter button to have the mail send away.

Sighing she let her head fall back and stared at the ceiling, silently praying that this was going to work. She had no idea how else she was able to save them. There was nobody but her who could do anything to help them.

This was so much harder than saving Oliver and Sara and Robert though since all of them had been in Starling City and they hadn’t been in acute danger. The danger had been the boat trip she had been able to prevent from happening and Malcolm Merlyn had been taken out by the League. But this… this was so much more difficult.

Let’s just see what was going to happen when the US government had received the information, she thought. If they chose to ignore it and to take it as a prank she was just going to find some other agency or whatever that might be interested in those information. Maybe she should find out what the ASIS unit Slade had worked for was thinking about this.

If the U.S. government was keeping an agent or soldier or whatever of the Australian Secret Intelligence Service hostage on an island in the North China Sea that sure as hell had to cause political tension, especially if the said agent had been sent there on a mission.

With a glance at her watch Felicity put that thought to the back of her mind. It was time to get ready for her drink date with Sally. There was no time left to take a shower, but she should at least make herself presentable as in hiding the dark shadows under her eyes beneath a thick layer of make-up and pinning up her hair to make it look like she had spent hours in front of the mirror when really it hadn’t taken longer than five minutes. Especially since she didn’t have more than fifteen minutes before Sally was going to turn up at her door.

She washed her face and put on some make-up. It didn’t really conceal the shadows under her eyes, but at least it made her look less like a ghost and a little bit more like a human being, a tired human being, but at least a human being. Her hair looked dull so she put it in her usual ponytail so it didn’t look that bad.

While Felicity rummaged around in her closet for something nice to wear she let the TV in the living room switched on so she could listen to the news. All day she had checked her mobile for the alarm she had set in case there were any news about that guy that was hopefully arrested thanks to the information she had sent to the police.

But nothing had happened. Until now obviously because while she took off her relaxed clothes and replaced them with skinny jeans and a pink blouse she heard the anchor man saying that there had been “an arrest in Starling City’s most spectacular case this year”. Hastily Felicity went to the TV to listen more closely to the news, buttoning up her blouse in the meantime.

“We can now confirm that we have arrested a suspect this afternoon. After a search through his apartment and car we can also verify that we have found evidence that from my point of view as an experienced cop will be enough to have a judge convict him of murder in all cases. Until then he will stay in custody” Detective Lance explained. “A judge has just decided about that.”

“Detective Lance, what leads have led you and your team to the suspect after there hadn’t been any evidence or leads before?” one of the reporters that were standing around the Detective asked.

“The police received an anonymous mail with files from Johnson’s computers. Although the SCPD wants to emphasize that we are not following every anonymous lead we receive, we are glad that we did with this. We know from the files that Johnson had already planned more robberies and murders” Lance answered. “Thanks to the source of our information those won’t be happening.”

“Is there any chance we will find out who we have to thank for Johnson’s arrest?” another reporter asked. “After all, that person had probably saved a lot of lives.”

“Unfortunately the mail we have received could not be retraced yet. For now we can just say that the person who has sent us the information is experienced in hacking and other computer technical areas. Our analysts are still trying to retrace the mail though and we will keep you informed if there are any developments.”

“Can’t you just be thankful and let it go?” Felicity murmured, shaking her head and rolling her eyes.

“What name did the person the mail was written by sign with?” a third reporter asked.

“There was no name used. Instead there was the image of a green arrow that seemed like some kind of signature.”

“Do you think Green Arrow is Starling City’s own guardian angel?”

“For now I think the answer is yes.”

Smiling Felicity grabbed the remote and switched off the TV, but kept staring at the darkened screen.

That was something to remember. Her first real success in what she did.

There had been times when Oliver had been Starling City’s guardian angel, long before the city had started hunting him down for the things the League had done. Felicity herself had always seen him like that. He hadn’t been a vigilante, but a guardian angel and a hero.  
And now the city was calling her the same. A guardian angel.

She liked the sound. And she liked the name they seemed to have given her. Green Arrow. It reminded her of Oliver and still was something of her own, just like she had hoped for when she had recreated his legacy, the one he had taken from his father after the island.

It was perfect, she thought happily before she put on her jacket, grabbed her purse and left for her drinking date. Tonight certainly was the night for some champagne.

 

 

“On a scale from one to ten how disgusted will you be if I tell you that I am that hungry that I am actually thinking about ordering the chocolate chips pancakes, the scrambled eggs, the fried chicken biscuit and the cereal with fruits?”

Oliver arched his eyebrow, looking at her above the edge of his menu.

“If you manage to eat all of that I will probably award you with a prize” he grinned. “I’m not sure what that prize will be, but you will get it.”

“You haven’t really seen me eat till now, Mister” Felicity grinned, winking at him before she waved at the waitress to take their orders.

Oliver grinned at her while she repeated all the dishes for the waitress to note on her little pad. The young girl asked three times whether Felicity was sure she wanted to have all those dishes and only let go of that when Oliver assured her that Felicity looked like a tiny little girl, but really had the appetite of a giant. She didn’t seem too convinced, but added Oliver’s order of French toast and English muffins and then left them to give the orders to the cook.

Sighing Felicity leaned back and closed her eyes for a second. She was still tired although she felt much more relaxed than she had yesterday or the day before that or the day before that. She had actually managed to get some hours of sleep and when she had woken up she hadn’t felt as guilty as she had been before, either, although she had spend a really nice evening with Sally and had downed at least one full bottle of champagne.

The success of having that murderer arrest had eased her guilty conscious.

“Are you going to tell me what makes you smile?” Oliver asked after a while, taking her right hand and kissing her knuckles.

Felicity opened her eyes blinkingly to look into his baby blues and saw him smiling at her lovingly. His hand was still holding hers, his thumb now stroking softly over the knuckles he had kissed before.

“It’s nothing” Felicity answered, shaking her head and turning her hand so she could entwine their fingers with each other’s. “I’m just happy.”

“Yeah…” Oliver said, cocking his head. “I don’t believe that. It’s not just that. There is more behind that. You seem more at peace somehow and I’d like to know why because it really is something to get used to.”

Biting down on her bottom lip she closed her free left hand around his hand holding hers so his hand was embraced by hers. She watched his thumb stroking the back of her hand for a short moment before she lifted her gaze to him again and looked at him smilingly.

“I know I have been a little unfocused lately” she said. “It’s… I can’t really explain it, but I think that I found a solution for that problem I had which means that my head is cleared for now. So you’re probably right and I am more in peace with myself right now.”

Oliver frowned. “If you had a problem then why didn’t you tell me about it? Maybe I could have helped.”

You have, Felicity wanted to say since she had only found a possibility to hopefully stop the wrong that was happening on the island by having Tommy tell her the story about Oliver’s and his night at that club. Besides, if she didn’t have Oliver close and were all alone she would have probably fallen into a deep depression, but she had him close and he made her happy. So God knew he had helped her to get through this.

“I don’t think you could have helped me with a lack in my computer security program” Felicity replied instead, leaning forward to kiss his cheek. “But I appreciate the offer.”

Laughing Oliver leaned back and nodded to himself as if he was recalling to his mind that Felicity was pretty smart and didn’t really need his or anyone’s help. Of course that wasn’t true because Felicity needed help, but she couldn’t really tell him about that without simultaneously telling him that she was working on something entirely different than just computer security systems.

“How are things with Tommy’s club going?” she changed the topic, pulling one of her hands back to lift the cup of coffee to her lips. “Did the two of you have any more ideas yet?”

“Well, after you left yesterday we actually talked more about you than the club.”

Felicity perked her eyebrows. “What did you say?”

“Since Tommy is my best friend I asked him what he thinks about you and he says he actually likes you a lot. Oh, and he is in equal measures amused and astonished that you have slapped me and that that had led to this.”

“I will never hear the end of that slap, right?”

“Never” he laughed. “Tommy also said he would like to see you more often which I guess was a slight hint that he is up for some kind of double date as soon as Laurel and he are finally admitting that there is something going on between them.”

“I think seeing Tommy more often could be arranged. Double date with your ex seems a little awkward.”

“Yeah, it probably is, but when I ran into Laurel yesterday when I left Tommy’s apartment she didn’t look as mad at me as she has before. So maybe there is hope.”

It was still awkward though. Even if Felicity hadn’t meant to pinch Laurel’s boyfriend she felt like she had done exactly that. Okay, Oliver had already been planning on cheating on her with Sara so their relationship had been over in some ways, but after all it had been her words that had made Oliver leave her and that had also made him fall in love with her. So she felt like she had snapped Oliver from her.

“Well, and then Tommy and I went to my father and talked to him about whether he will sell the factory to Tommy” Oliver interrupted her thoughts.

“Right” Felicity said. “I haven’t thought about that.”

Oliver smiled at her softly and answered: “Well, luckily my father was okay with that. I think he is already drawing up a contract which will include a paragraph about how Tommy will have to join my father’s new charity idea by donating part of the money the club will make to the people in the Glades by the way. I am not sure whether it is legally bounding or just a token gesture or something, but either way it will be there.”

“That seems fair” Felicity said with a nod. “The last thing people in the Glades need are spoilt people that leave their garbage at every corner and throw up on the streets because they are drunk and don’t care… That sounded a lot harsher than it should have. Sorry.”

Oliver shrugged his shoulders. “You’re right. The Glades need people that stand up for them and help them.”

“Do you think Tommy is going to sign the contract despite that paragraph?”

“I actually think he would have donated money even if the paragraph wasn’t added. His father was the one who had tried to destroy the Glades and by retaining the clinic his mother had built in the Glades and joining my father’s charity idea he hopes he can make up for that.”

“You know, I don’t think Tommy has to make up for what his father had done. Those were his father’s actions that had almost cost the lives of the people living in the Glades. Tommy didn’t do it. I just think that having that much money also means you have some kind of responsibility.”

Breathing in deeply Oliver looked at her full of love. He looked at lot alike to the Oliver who had sat across from her on the other side of the table in an Italian restaurant and had told her that he might have been wrong when he had told her that because of the life he led he couldn’t be with anyone he could have really cared about. He kissed her hand once more, adding: “You are truly remarkable.”

Before Felicity could say anything more the waitress approached their table, balancing several plates with delicious smelling food on her forearms. With each plate she put to the table she told the two the name of the dish and each time her voice sounded more doubting than before, clearly thinking that Felicity was never going to be able to eat all of that.

“Can I get you anything more?” she asked, her eyes fixed on the plates all in front of Felicity.

“No, we’re fine” Felicity said, smiling at her shortly before she looked down at all her food and puckered her lips, trying to decide where to start.

“Felicity, you will never eat all of that” Oliver said with an amused grin. “I am highly sure the whole food weighs more than you do.”

“Okay, what do you want to bet?” Felicity asked, crossing her arms in front of her chest and leaning back. “How about the loser pays the bill?”

“Since I am going to win and I refuse to let you pay the bill given that I have much more money than you do and I am a well-behaved gentleman, I suggest the winner pays the bill.”

“Agreed” Felicity said with a nod and reached out her hand for him to shake which Oliver did, the amused grin still on his face. “You will lose, Mister.”

“Just tell yourself so, Miss Smoak, if that makes you feel better.”

Grinning she dipped the spoon into her cereals and shoved the fresh, fruity food into her mouth, her eyes never leaving Oliver’s. Chuckling he shook his head and applied himself to his own breakfast.

 

 

“I still can’t believe I had to let you pay the bill” Oliver said for the millionth time when they strolled down the street towards her apartment two hours later, going for a little after-breakfast walk.

“You can’t believe you had to let me pay the bill or you can’t believe I ate all the food I ordered?” Felicity laughed quietly, sliding both arms around Oliver’s middle and snuggling her cheek to his shoulder.

“Both of it probably” Oliver replied with a laugh. “I mean… how did you manage to eat all of that? Just watching you eat that much has made me sick to my stomach.”

“I asked you how disgusted you would be.”

“You didn’t give me the chance to answer that question” Oliver chuckled, but pressed a kiss to the crown of her head and stroked his hand up and down her upper arm. “Don’t worry. I was more impressed than disgusted.”

Sighing Felicity closed her eyes and breathed Oliver in. Why couldn’t they stay like that forever? Just taking endlessly long walks and laughing about stupid little things. It was so enjoyable and so weirdly normal.

“We’re almost at your apartment” Oliver grumbled. “Can’t we just walk a few more rounds around the block? I don’t want to leave you already.”

Felicity laughed at his tone. He sounded like a little child that wanted to have more ice cream but wasn’t allowed to. It seemed like she was the ice cream. If she was she wanted to be mint chocolate chip ice cream. Thinking about it, she might be hungry for it and-

Oliver’s chuckle interrupted her apparently not so internal babble and blushing she hid her face in his shoulder and asked groaningly: “Did I say that out loud?”

“You did” he laughed. “And I can’t believe you can even think about food again so short after you have downed that massive breakfast.”

“Hello, I am tiny, I need to eat to grow” she replied, looking up at him with a playful face.

Oliver laughed amusedly, leaning down to drop a short kiss to her temple before he said breathlessly from his laughing: “God, I love you.”

Immediately Felicity stood still, losing the grip she had on him and stepped back slightly. Her lips parted and her eyes widened in shock, she stared at Oliver who for a second seemed to have no idea what her reaction had caused before his eyes widened, too, in his case because of realization.

“I’m sorry if I ambushed you with that” he apologized quickly. “I know we wanted to take things slow and telling you I love you that soon is not exactly taking things slow, but it’s how I feel. If you’re not ready you can just forget about that and we will act like nothing has happened and-“

Felicity interrupted him by pressing her lips to his. She made use of the fact that his mouth was opened from talking to stroke her tongue against his. Immediately his arms closed around her waist and he pulled her against his broad chest, responding to the kiss. They stayed like that until their lungs were burning from the lack of air and they parted, but kept their forehead attached to each others, their fingers entwining.

“I love you, too” Felicity responded when she was finally able to breathe enough to say anything. “I love you, Oliver.”

Oliver loosened his fingers from hers and framed her face with his hands instead, stroking the delicate skin above her cheekbones with his thumbs before he lowered his lips to hers once more and kissed her gently and unhurriedly.

The tide seemed to be turning for her benefit.

If only they could stay like this forever, she thought, but was immediately reminded of reality when Oliver’s cell phone rang. Groaning he let go of her lips to reach into the pocket of his jeans and pull the little noisy thing out, taking the call while blinking at her, his free hand not leaving her face.

“Dad” he said with a slight sigh, rolling his eyes at her.

Giggling lowly Felicity let her head drop forward to his chest. Oliver rested his chin on the crown of her head and massaged the back of her neck. Sighing she stepped closer and leaned herself against him, closing her eyes while Oliver kept talking to his dad.

“What? Now?” he asked after a few moments and Felicity lifted her head again, looking at him in question. “No, no, I’m… I’m with Felicity… No, if it’s important I’ll come... Yes... Yes, see you there... I’ll tell her... Bye.”

Sighing he hang up and looked at her with his sad puppy eyes.

“You have to leave, I guess?” she asked knowingly.

“I do. My father wants me to meet some of his business friends.”

“On a Saturday?”

“On a Saturday” Oliver nodded, putting his phone back to the pocket of his jeans and leaned forward to kiss her. “I was also ordered to remind you that there is an open dinner invitation. You can come over anytime.”

“Soon” she promised “but not tonight. Tonight all I want to do is lie on my couch, watch silly movies and eat mint chocolate chip ice cream. Care to join me?”

“After I am going to spend hours with my father’s friends? Sure as hell” he responded and sighed when he glanced at his watch. “I need to go.”

“Okay” Felicity sighed, straightening on her tiptoes to kiss him once more. “See you tonight?”

“See you tonight” he nodded, brushing his lips against hers for a last time before he turned around and got in his car he had parked in front of her apartment when he had picked her up for their breakfast.

Felicity waited on the broad way until his car disappeared behind the next corner. Only then did she turn around and walk to her door, rummaging around in her bag to find her keys.

“Felicity Megan Smoak?”

At the sound of her name Felicity turned around quickly, finding herself face to face with two tall men in dark, probably very expensive suits.

“Can I help you?” she asked.

“We work for the US government and were asked to take you with us. Our superior wishes to have a short talk with you” the one man said with what was probably supposed to be a friendly smile. “If you were so kind to come with us.”

Although he sounded friendly and both of them tried to do their best to not look too threatening, Felicity could tell that their request was actually more a command. She highly doubted that she could say no.

She probably should have seen that coming. The last time Ra’s had abducted her and now she was ordered to an interrogation by the US government. Yeah, she seemed to be a favored victim for those things right now. And she had obviously underestimated the capabilities of those servers if they had managed to retrace her mail.

“Miss Smoak?” the agent asked when she didn’t follow them.

She put a tight smile on her face and nodded while going into their direction. “Yes, of course.”

Obviously the tide had decided to turn against her once again.


	5. Chapter 5

During the ride through the city Felicity sat as still as possible on the backseat of the black SUV the governmental agents had led her to. Looking out of the window, she chewed nervously on her bottom lip. The first five minutes she had chewed on her thumbnail, but had released it to mistreat her lip instead. She had no idea what to expect from the trip to the governmental agency.

Part of her was hoping that whoever had let her be picked up by two agents really wanted to just talk to her about the information she had sent them. Mostly she doubted that though, not thinking that the U.S. government was indeed sending agents to invite civilians to nice, little teatimes, especially not on a Saturday before lunch.

They drove for like twenty minutes, more and more leaving the major traffic pathways and heading to the outlying districts Felicity had never been to, before the car stopped in front of a gate to an underground parking. Felicity’s heartbeat fastened when the car rolled into the dark parking area, concrete walls without any windows now surrounding her.

No, she was kind of sure this wasn’t going to be a pleasant talk she had been taken to. No, no, she wasn’t just kind of sure. She had been kind of sure before. Now she was definitely sure. This wasn’t going to be fun.

The agent parked the car right next to a door. While he shut the motor off, his colleague, the only one who had said a word until now, got out already and opened her door. Had she mentioned that they had locked the door after she had gotten in? They had said it was only to her safety, but since Felicity wasn’t five years anymore she doubted that that was the truth, too.

Without saying a word the agents led her towards the door. While the taller agent, who had driven the car, was walking slightly before her, the other one was almost walking right at her side. They must have paid no attention to her shoes if they really thought she was going to run away. Running in those high heels was probably not doing any good. If only, she was going to break her ankle.

The taller agent opened the door next to the car and held it open for Felicity and the other agent. Hesitatingly Felicity stepped into the room and perked her eyebrows when she found herself in a nice little room with a marble floor and a huge flower between the two elevator doors. It looked like at least the interior decoration was elegant.

When the elevator doors opened Felicity and the two agents stepped in. The taller one pushed the button for the fifth floor and with a low music playing in the background, the elevator started to move up.

Felicity was almost sure this must look like one of those silly comedy movies. There she was in an elevator that played music while she was flanked by two agents. If the situation wasn’t so serious, she would probably laugh now, but instead she took some deep breaths, trying to figure out what she was going to say when she was asked about the information she had sent them about what was happening on the island.

The elevator stopped and the two agents guided her through a corridor with expensive looking painting on the walls between the many doors to both sides. They stopped at the end of the hallway were the taller agent opened the door and the other one said, “Ms. Smoak, please wait here for our superior to come and talk to you. It will only take a few minutes.”

She was kind of surprised the agents had followed her demand to stop calling her ‘Miss Smoak’. Something about being called ‘Miss Smoak’ remembered her of her time in school when the teachers had used it to make her feel less smart than she really was. It was funny when Oliver said it because he meant it in a teasing way. The agents seemed to mean it much more seriously as if she really was a little girl. Okay, she was officially nineteen year old teenager, but she hadn’t been called ‘Miss’ in years so…

Hesitatingly Felicity stepped into the room. Before she got the chance to even take a look around, the door closed behind her, leaving her alone in the room, and she heard the same agent that had spoken before, ask his colleague to take up his post while he was going to get their superior.

Felicity breathed in deeply. At least she had some moments for herself so she could think about what to say and what to do.

Turning around, she observed the room shortly. It was definitely an interrogation room. There was a table with three chairs around it in the middle of the room. The little flower that looked like it was supposed to give the room some prettifying note was almost dead and made the room only look more depressing than it did already.

For a short second she thought about the fern she had put in the foundry as a gift for Oliver and how it had ended up on the floor of their abandoned lair. Hastily she shook her head and concentrated back on her current situation.

Slowly Felicity walked over to the window on the other side of the room. She had the boring view on more concrete buildings. As she tried to open the windows to get some fresh air because the air in here was stuffy and hot, she realized the window was locked up. Of course it was, she thought bitterly. She might actually jump out of the window to escape the questioning.

The questioning, she repeated in her head. What was she supposed to say?

The plan had been to threaten them with the media. She had done that.  
Now she was here and since she was a bad liar all she could do was tell the truth and that was probably not going to be for her best.   
She was totally screwed and didn’t even have some kind of back-up like a fully armed John Diggle or a well trained Black Canary in the back of her hand.

What was Oliver going to think if she just disappeared? They had arranged a movie date for tonight. If she wasn’t going to be there after he had told her he loved her this morning, Oliver was probably going to think that she had played some kind of evil game with him. Given how their relationship had started with her slapping him and how she had told him off about his behavior, it would probably be the most logical conclusion to make. Well, at least that was going to spare him the heartache she had suffered through after he had joined the League.

Or was Oliver going to look for her?

Probably not, she thought with a shake of her head. She had forgotten one date already, had canceled another one and left their meeting with Tommy at the factory early. She hadn’t really given the impression to be a reliable person and caring too much about their relationship, so…

 “Ms. Smoak?” a deep voice interrupted her thoughts.

Hastily Felicity turned around. She eyed up the person in front of her, another tall man in another expensive looking suit. It seemed to be some kind of fashion thing here.

“Please sit down,” he more ordered than requested.

Felicity crossed her arms in front of her chest and shook her head, stating, “I’m not going to sit down until you tell me who you are, who you are working for and where the hell I am here because this doesn’t seem to be a governmental building.”

Yes, Felicity thought to herself, playing for time until she had figured out what to do was a really good idea. And maybe the anger was helping her as well.

“My name is Agent Howard Mercer. I work for the United States Department of Homeland Security and you have noticed rightly that this is not one of our or any other governmental agency’s buildings. Since our next field office would have been too far away for you to have a pleasant travel, we have decided to rent those business offices.”

She really needed a plan and she needed it as soon as possible, Felicity thought desperately since she didn’t believe one word of what that man had said. She was kind of sure that he was working for A.R.G.U.S. or at least had been in the picture of that organization and what it was doing. She couldn’t say why, but it was a strong feeling. So she really needed a plan. At least she could suggest that there were just three of those agents in the building, the two, who had taken her here, and Agent Mercer in front of her.

“Please sit down, Ms. Smoak,” Agent Mercer repeated, only this time it sounded a little more like a request than an order.

Hesitatingly Felicity sat down on the edge of one of the chairs. She folded her hands on the tabletop and waited for Agent Mercer to do anything. While she did so, she eyed him up once more. He didn’t look like too muscular so maybe her training with Diggle could be useful. Maybe if she surprised him at the right time she could actually-

No, she couldn’t, Felicity changed her mind. When Agent Mercer sat down on the other side of the table, his suit jacket slid aside and revealed the view on the gun he carried in the shoulder holster. She shouldn’t risk anything as long as she wasn’t convinced that she could indeed take him down. Counting on the shock effect wasn’t gonna do it.

“We have received your mail, Ms. Smoak,” Agent Mercer said.

Felicity felt a cold shiver run down her spine at the sound of her name spilling from his lips. She couldn’t even say why, but something about the way he said it made her feel exactly like she did whenever she heard the screeching of a piece of chalk on a board.

“As you may know, the governmental agency I work for is responsible for the protection of U.S. territories from terrorist attacks.”

“I may be blonde, but not that blonde,” Felicity explained, her voice sounding surprisingly strong in her ears. “Besides, I am a fake blonde so…”

Agent Mercer’s eyes narrowed and his lips formed into a smug smile for a short moment before he managed to control his mimics again and his facial expression became serious. Still, Felicity decided that now wasn’t the time to babble and shut her lips quickly.

“As a result we have of course taken the necessary action to solve the problem,” Agent Mercer explained. “Agent Amanda Waller has been taken into custody and A.R.G.U.S. had been given a thorough security check so the next head of the agency won’t get the chance to act behind the government’s back and threaten the state’s security and international peace.”

So far, so good, Felicity thought. Amanda Waller in custody seemed to be at least one step in the right direction. New security guidelines to prevent that something like this was happening again, would surely made sense.

But Felicity knew that this wasn’t all. There was something more Agent Mercer wanted to do or say or whatever. She could see it in his eyes. And Felicity was sure that the next part wasn’t as pleasant.

“Ms. Smoak,” Agent Mercer started, getting up and starting to walk up and down in front of her, “do you know which consequences a scandal like this might cause?”

Instead of letting her reply to that, he sighed and said, “If anyone finds out about this, it might cause a war. An U.S. agency planning to decimate the Chinese economy and holding an agent of the Australian Secret Intelligence Service captive…”

He released an emphasized sigh.

“Something like this will cause international tensions, endangering the peace between the USA, China and maybe even Australia. The USA will for all time remembered to be the state to have caused the greatest war of the 21st century. You will have to admit that this is something the government cannot risk.”

Felicity felt her skin start tingling. She needed a plan and she needed it now because given how Agent Mercer talked to her and looked at her, she knew that this conversation wasn’t going to take much longer.

“What exactly makes you so sure that I haven’t set up an automatic service that is going to send a mail with all those information to several news media and interested governments?”

She really should have done that. She had thought about that shortly, but had discarded the thought basically because she hadn’t had enough time to do that. The next time she was going to do it.

If there was going to be a next time, Felicity added quietly.

Her breath hitched when Agent Mercer came to stand right next to her, took his gun and looked at her with a sigh. He said very calmly, “Ms. Smoak, A.R.G.U.S. has checked that and in case you actually have to manage to fool our technical analysts and have set up a service like that, there will be a lot of information found, that is going to make sure nobody will believe you. You will be nothing else but a crazy little girl with paranoia. You shouldn’t underestimate the power our agency has and-“

Felicity didn’t even get around to ask him whether he was working for A.R.G.U.S. like his words had kind of made her suggest once again and with that had almost proofed her doubts on his prior claim to work for Homeland Security. Agent Mercer held the gun right in front of her face.

That was it, Felicity thought. She had traveled back in time just to die years before she had died in the original run of time. She might have prevented a few bad things from happening, but there still were so much danger the people in Starling City or elsewhere had to fear. She had barely achieved anything. And now she was dying before she had had a chance to do all the good she had wanted to do. And she was dying before she had had a chance to really be with Oliver as she had always wished she could.

“In my mind, you would have been a pretty addition to our team, Ms. Smoak,” the agent said. “Unfortunately A.R.G.U.S. refuses to work with threats like you and doesn’t consider you as a helpful teammate for our Task Force X, a new project we have started. Anyway, I want to assure you that this is nothing personal and I will personally take care that your mother will be informed about your death in a gentle way. We will tell her that you have been robbed and killed in the Glades and-“

Felicity wanted to scream and swear at the guy. How could he actually have the brass neck to tell her that he was going to inform her mother that she was killed in the Glades when it was him who was going to kill her?!

Her mother. Felicity had barely thought about her since her time travel. Now she was going to die and hadn’t even called her ever since she had left MIT. At least that was what Donna was going to think since she of course didn’t know about her daughter’s time travel either. She would lose her only daughter, her only family and-

Her internal rage came to a sudden stop when she heard noises from the other side of the door – first one dull sound like something falling to the floor, then a second. Agent Mercer turned his head towards the door, obviously mad about the interruption of his oh so great speech.

Although his eyes were focused on the door, his head turned back and half of his upper body turned around as well, the gun was still pointing right into her face.

Felicity didn’t think about it, she didn’t make a decision. Before she even registered what she was doing, her body was moving already. One hand gripped the agent’s wrist, her other hand hit the crook of his arms, so the gun was no pointing into the other direction. Everything after that was a blur. She didn’t even know what she was doing. Her body was moving like on own accord. One second she was sitting there, watching the guy face away from her, the next second she was standing in front of him and he looked at her with a stupid expression in his face while she was holding his gun.

May God bless John Diggle and his training!

Felicity didn’t get a real chance to take a breath, though. While she was trying to think about how she had managed to disarm an A.R.G.U.S. agent – she was almost sure that he was working for A.R.G.U.S. by now – the door was kicked open and a familiar figure stood in the doorframe, pointing an arrow at the man in front of her.

“Agent Mercer,” the voice from under the hood said, stony eyes were staring at him, but Felicity thought she might see some kind of smug smile underneath the hard expression.

“Nyssa al Ghul, Heir to the demon… Ms. Smoak, I didn’t know you were working for the League of Assassins,” Agent Mercer explained, not taking his eyes from Nyssa. “I have to say I am surprised. I didn’t think you were one of them.”

“She’s not,” Nyssa replied, “but she is under our protection. So, Agent Mercer, you go back to your unit and tell your new supervisor that if he ever comes near Felicity Smoak again the League will come and revenge her death. Her death will cost the lives of a lot more. Agents, their friends and their families will die. Amanda Waller had been smart enough to not get too close to the League. Whoever has taken her place should follow that lead. Go and take you two little minions with you.”

Agent Mercer shortly glanced back at Felicity before his eyes snapped to Nyssa once again. Felicity could see that he was thinking about how he could disarm those two women and take them out. Obviously Nyssa could see it, too, because without saying a word she shot the arrow through the agent’s thigh.

Groaning he fell to the floor.

“The League doesn’t allow hesitation,” Nyssa stated.

A sound from behind the open door told them that those two other agents, who Nyssa had probably taken out before she had stormed in here, were regaining consciousness. Immediately Nyssa was pointing another arrow with her bow, this time at the window and when she released the bow, the arrow broke the windowpane.

“I’ll take you out of here,” she explained.

Nyssa strode through the room with large, strong steps. As soon as she stood next to Felicity, she shot another arrow. It flew through the window and stayed stuck in the wall of the next building, not far from the floor. Before Felicity could manage to babble anything about the fact that she was afraid of heights or that she didn’t exactly like this form of overcome heights, Nyssa had already grabbed her by the waist and was jumping out of the window with her.

Who would have known that Nyssa was actually that strong, Felicity thought. The only one times she had ever jumped out of a building like that had been with Oliver, at first when they had been attacked in his office and then in the night of Slade’s attack. The adrenalin and the fact that it had been Oliver had kept her from throwing up then. This time it was the surprise of Nyssa doing so and maybe a little bit of the fact that she was still riding high on adrenalin from her almost-death.

Thank God it was over soon.

As soon as her feet hit the ground, Nyssa was letting go of Felicity and was running for cover since shots were fired at them from the windows. They must have chosen the exact right moment to leave the building, Felicity realized while following Nyssa in a crouched posture.

So she was under the League’s protection, Felicity thought while running behind Nyssa. Why? She hadn’t exactly threatened them since nobody could actually consider her a serious threat to a League of psychotic murderers, but she had let Ra’s have a piece of her mind about how she felt about the League. He had no reason to protect her.

Felicity didn’t know how long she was running already. At some point, shortly after they had started running, she had stopped to take off her shoes because it was almost impossible to run in her high heels. She had just discarded them on the floor, not caring to pick them up and take them with her since she hadn’t want to risk having too much distance to Nyssa. Finally Nyssa’s steps lost pace and both of them stopped running.

“You should work on your fitness,” Nyssa declared, watching Felicity breathing in and out quickly as she was trying to catch her breath. “If you keep getting yourself into danger, you should train more; learn how to fight and how to defend yourself.”

“Are you offering yourself as my teacher?” Felicity asked, perking her eyebrow.

“Certainly not,” Nyssa replied with what Felicity assumed was an amused grin. “I’m just trying to spare myself the work of having to watch you every waking hour.”

Felicity huffed and lowered her gaze to her feet. They were bleeding slightly. The saying was ‘Sticks and stones may break my bones’, well, in Felicity’s case it should be altered to ‘Sticks and stones may make my feet bleed’, she thought, but shook her head and returned her gaze to Nyssa.

“How did you know Agent Mercer?” Felicity asked, not feeling brave enough to ask her about the League yet.

“Agent Mercer works for A.R.G.U.S. and has been instructed to take me captive. Those last years he had been following me to various countries. I suggest Amanda Waller’s incarceration has caused his promotion.”

Felicity nodded slowly.

“Are you sure Amanda Waller isn’t head of A.R.G.U.S. anymore and Agent Mercer didn’t just tell that?”

“The League has a mole in the agency. He confirmed it.”

The League had a mole in A.R.G.U.S.?  Well, it shouldn’t actually surprise her. The League had people almost everywhere it seemed.

“Why did you save me?” she finally dared to ask. “I know, you said I’m under the League’s protection, but… why?”

Nyssa didn’t reply to that for a long time. Wordlessly she kept leading Felicity through the forest area. Her eyes were hard, her posture strong, just like she had got to known Nyssa before she had been rejected by her father and told to marry Oliver, something Felicity really needed to forget quickly.

They were reaching the end of the forest area, approaching a street, when Nyssa finally spoke up.

“My father doted on you,” she said with a frown. “I don’t know what exactly he sees in you, but I guess he wishes to have you stay alive. I’m respecting his wishes so you can count on me keeping an eye on you.”

Felicity looked at her in question. She was about to ask whether she was planning on staying close for the rest of Felicity’s life, stepping in whenever Felicity was risking her life, when Nyssa stood still.

“I think we are far enough away now for me to leave you alone.”

Slowly Felicity nodded. The building could not be seen from where they were, mainly because there was the forest between them, but Felicity guessed that Nyssa was right and they were far enough away.

“Follow the road. It will take a few minutes before you come to a busier road. You can catch a taxi from there.”

“I guess you will keep an eye on me?” Felicity asked.

“Maybe,” Nyssa answered with a smug grin, “but you shouldn’t count on that for the rest of your life. Someday I might not be there, so you should better start training to increase your fitness and become at least an acceptable fighter now.”

“I’ll think about it,” Felicity replied with a short nod. “See you?”

“I wouldn’t bet on that,” Nyssa said before she pointed her arrow into the nowhere and was gone the next second.

Felicity stared at where Nyssa had been standing just seconds ago, before she shook her head and decided that she should probably leave. Even if Nyssa was probably watching her all the time, she shouldn’t risk being caught by A.R.G.U.S. again.

So she started going again, walking into the direction Nyssa had showed her.

She had barely started walking when she realized that she was still holding Agent Mercer’s gun in her hand. For a second she thought about just throwing it away, but the danger of someone finding kept her from doing so. So instead she let the thing fall into her handbag. She would find out what to do with it later.

The sun was burning down on her now. Her skin was prickling from the blazing sun, the air was sticky. The asphalt was burningly hot underneath her naked feet. She almost ran on own accord since she couldn’t bare the contact for much longer than a fraction of a second.

It seemed like she was starting her training much sooner than she had expected, Felicity thought. She should certainly ask Nyssa to train her some more times. Maybe one day she was going to give in. After all, she had trained Laurel. Okay, Laurel was Sara’s sister and Nyssa had been in love with Sara and she had also been rejected by her father, but Felicity could at least hope to have a chance.

But having Nyssa around too often was also increasing the risk of having her meet Oliver one day. Felicity couldn’t say why, but she didn’t want them to meet. It was probably because of their wedding back before her time travel. She knew it had been an arranged marriage. Oliver had been brainwashed or whatever, but still she didn’t like the fact of introducing those two to one another.

When Felicity was finally reaching the street Nyssa had probably referred to when she had said that it was going to take some minutes before Felicity was going to find a busier street where she could catch a taxi, she sighed in relief. Her whole body was hurting already and she was sure she was suffering from a slight sunburn.

Felicity took the first free taxi available. The driver looked at her like she was crazy since she didn’t wear shoes, but Felicity smiled that away and convinced him to take her to her place by paying the major part of the price before he even started driving.

She was going to wash her feet and fall into bed immediately. It was just early afternoon, but she was so tired that she just needed to sleep. She had barely slept ever since she had started to work on saving the people on the island and getting the guy, who had been responsible for the death of Starling City’s citizens, captured.

Her eyes fell shut more than once during her ride to her apartment.

When the taxi stopped, Felicity had the money already at hand. She paid the price, including an extra great tip for the driver before she opened the door and got out, breathing in deeply for what seemed like the first time in hours.

She was exhausted. The hair at the back of her neck clung to her skin from all the sweat. Her feet hurt from all the little scratches and rest of her body hurt from everything else. She could barely keep herself up on her feet anymore. She felt like she was more tumbling towards the door then that she was walking, but-

“There you are! I thought I had to report you missing,” Oliver said and immediately Felicity’s head snapped up to meet his eyes.

“What are you doing here?” she asked. “I thought you had to have lunch with your father’s friends.”

“I did, but it was so boring that I swear if I had to stay one more minute, I would have fallen asleep at the table. So I excused myself and came here to see you. I know we were supposed to see each other tonight to watch movies, but I thought we could also start early,” he explained, eying her up while he was talking. “Felicity, did you realize that you’re not wearing shoes?”

Biting her bottom lip Felicity lowered her gaze to her naked, scuffed feet.

“Yeah…”

When she looked up again, Oliver was already staring at her in question. Cocking his head, he said, “Felicity, why aren’t you wearing shoes? And please don’t say you’re playing Cinderella, dropping your shoes every now and then, hoping your prince will come and find you some day.”

“What?” Felicity asked confusedly.

“Thea did that when she was younger. I think she purposely lost like thirty pair of shoes within half a year. She only stopped when our mother threatened to not buy her new ones.”

“Cute,” Felicity sighed.

She knew she couldn’t delay her answer for much longer. It wasn’t like she didn’t know what to say. She had like three different possibilities to answer in her head. She just didn’t really want to lie to Oliver. It was something she would never get used to.

“What if I told you that I just don’t want to talk about it?” she asked with a sad smile.

Felicity was almost sure that Oliver was going to shake his head and explain that if she didn’t trust him enough to talk about those things to him, their relationship wouldn’t work. To her surprise, he didn’t.

“In that case I’ll suggest we get you upstairs, take care of the scratches and start our movie night a few hours earlier than planned.”

“I might fall asleep before the first movie starts,” she admitted.

Oliver chuckled lowly. Framing her face with his hands he stepped closer and pressed a short kiss to her lips. “Do you want me to leave and come back later to start our movie night? I’m okay with that if that is what you want.”

Smilingly Felicity shook her head. “No, I’d like you to stay if you’re okay with that.”

“I’m more than okay with that,” Oliver replied, kissing her once more, before he put one arm around her back, the other behind the back of her knees and lifted her from the floor with a bright grin on his face. “I’ve always wanted to do that.”

“My knight in shining armor,” she laughed, sliding her arms around his neck and resting her head on his shoulder.

Maybe their relationship could work after all.


	6. Chapter 6

Releasing a low groan, Felicity awoke after hours of deep sleep. She only dared to open her eyes long enough to glance at her alarm clock. It was only nine in the morning, too early for her liking. So Felicity groaned once more and put her pillow over her head, hiding from the light coming in through the window.

After Oliver had carried her upstairs to her apartment, he had treated her wounds gently by washing her feet and bandaging the scratches. She had thanked him with a soft kiss to his lips and had suggested to start watching a movie before she was going to fall asleep so Oliver had carried her to her couch where he had laid her down and had started to search through her DVDs for something worth watching. Felicity had fallen asleep before he had found anything.

She dimly remembered that he had carried her to her bed after some time and she had murmured something about kangaroos with machine guns. Those had haunted her in her dreams and in her dizzy state she had been unable to activate her brain-to-mouth-filter to stop herself from saying anything stupid like that. She could only hope that she had mumbled enough that Oliver had not understood. Otherwise the ground would probably open and swallow her up when she next saw him.

Cautiously she peeped out from under her pillow, trying to figure out whether Oliver was still there. He wasn’t. Slowly Felicity put her pillow aside and sat up, staring at the empty bed side next to her.

Part of her had hoped that he had left already so she didn’t have to face the embarrassing moment of realizing that he had understood what she had said, despite her mumbling.  
But the sight of the empty bedside just made her realize once more how alone she really was.

Yes, she was in a relationship with Oliver.  
Yes, she was working on becoming friends with Sally and Tommy.  
Still, none of them knew what she was doing half of her time.

She wished that she could just tell Oliver, but he would most certainly try to talk her out of this. After all, she seemed to be nothing more than a little IT girl. Oliver didn’t know that she had been working on saving this city for years already. All he was going to see was his girlfriend getting herself in danger and putting other people in danger, considering she had ordered the League of assassins to kill Malcolm Merlyn, his best friend’s father.

So she couldn’t tell him or at least not yet.

There was no good reason in telling him anything about what she did before she had found out how exactly she was going to work. She still hadn’t found a way that was going to work all the time. She had nobody for field work and sending information to the police or any other institution wasn’t going to work all the time. She needed to find a way to take care of her business herself without anyone’s help.

A clattering sound from the kitchen distracted her from her thoughts. The noise was immediately followed by a rough curse, leaving no doubt that it was Oliver making a mess in her kitchen. Smiling, she got out of bed and tiptoed towards where she heard more noises.

She stayed in the doorframe of her bedroom from where Felicity quietly watched Oliver. He had his back turned towards her, giving her a nice view on his butt. He was standing at the stove, apparently trying to cook, but considering his swearing, it didn’t seem to work the way he would like.

“Morning,” Felicity said with a smile, slowly approaching Oliver. She came to a stand behind him and slid her arms around his middle while snuggling her cheek to his back. Even through the fabric of his dress shirt she could feel the heat radiating from his body. “What are you doing?”

“I am trying to cook you breakfast,” Oliver replied, shortly patting her hands on his chest before refocusing on the task at hand. “Rasia taught me how to do her special scrambled eggs.”

“Smells great,” Felicity sighed, closing her eyes and pressing herself closer to Oliver’s back.

He was still here. He had spent the night at her side, sleeping. Felicity couldn’t even tell why this meant so much to her. Maybe it was because they had never done that. Before her time travel they had never had the chance to just sleep next to each other. Their night in Nanda Parbat had been too short for any sleep and too filled the fear of having to say goodbye and never seeing each other again. So this had been their first real night together, their first full night together.

“Will you tell me what makes you smile like that?” Oliver asked, turning around and embracing her in his arms.

“You’re here,” Felicity explained, raising up on her tiptoes to press a short kiss to his lips, “and you are preparing breakfast for us. Both things are so very attentive of you.”

“Well, I don’t want to be anywhere else right now and since I have underestimated your appetite once, I thought preparing breakfast was the least I could do after you have offered me a bed to stay for the night.”

“You carried me around yesterday. So it feels like I owe you breakfast,” Felicity replied with a grin.

“Maybe next time,” Oliver answered, gently kissing her forehead and rubbing her lower back with his thumbs. “Now you will sit down on your couch, switch on the TV and relax for the few minutes I need to finish your breakfast.”

“Okay,” Felicity sighed before loosening her grip on Oliver to turn around and stroll to the couch. She grabbed the remote from the table, let herself fall into the cushions and turned on the TV, saying, “I can’t believe I’ve been sleeping through yesterday. The last time I slept for more than twelve hours feels like ages ago.”

“You looked tired, so I guess you needed the sleep. You’ve been saying something funny about kangaroos with machine-guns by the way.”

Felicity felt herself blushing. Mumbling something about how she hated kangaroos to herself, she focused on the TV, but nonetheless heard Oliver chuckle at her reaction. Well, at least he seemed to think her babble was amusing and not annoying. She felt his gaze on her skin and took a look at him to see him leaning at the kitchen counter, staring at her unashamedly. She smiled back and he winked, making her giggle slightly.

Would she ever get used to seeing a relaxed Oliver standing in her kitchen, preparing breakfast while watching her with a smile on his lips like she was his favorite TV show? She highly doubted it.

He was just about to say something when the news caught her attention. Hastily she gestured him to be quiet in case he wanted to say something and looked at the screen.

“…where three people have been found on an island in the North China Sea. According to the statement of a governmental press spokesman the United States Department of Homeland Security had found them after a security check of one of its subsidiary agencies had revealed plans for a terroristic attack. What exactly that information included and what terroristic attack had been planned was not further elucidated, but it had been assured that the people responsible have been arrested already.”

Oliver slowly approached, holding out a cup of freshly brewed coffee for her. Felicity took it, without looking away from the screen, where Amanda Waller and a few other people in handcuffs were led to a police car. She felt him sitting down on the backrest right behind her so she leaned her head back to rest it on his thigh while Oliver began playing with her hair.

“Among the innocent people found on the island is said to be an agent of the Australian Secret Intelligence Service who was believed to have died on a mission almost two years ago. He and the other two people of Chinese origin have been brought to Australia where they will be taken care of until the case is solved completely. An U.S. governmental legate will fly to Australia within the next days to officially excuse for what has happened and talk about financial reparation.”

While the anchorman informed the viewers on others news, Oliver got up from his place behind her and Felicity leaned back into the cushions, taking a deep breath. She had done it. It had seemed so impossible, but she had done it. She had saved them from the horror on the island. Amanda Waller was arrested and even if the new head of A.R.G.U.S. was probably going to follow her footsteps in some ways, it still seemed like a success. It was a success.

She couldn’t have done it without Nyssa, though. Felicity knew that and she also knew that Nyssa had been right when she had said that Felicity had to train more. She needed to work on her fitness, so cardio training and strength training should both be on her daily routine from now. Maybe she was going to find a gym where she could learn how to fight.

But what did she have to look out for? A fighting course for prospective vigilantes? Felicity had a sure feeling that something like that wasn’t offered in any of Starling City’s gyms. Nyssa was still her best shot at learning any of the things she needed to learn. Nyssa had all the knowledge and skills Felicity needed to have in case she ever wanted or rather needed to do any field work or was ever going to be captured by the bad ones again.

Probably both things would happen sooner or later if she continued with her work as Green Arrow. And Felicity was going to continue this. There were still so many people on her list, so many people that needed saving. So yes, she had to find a way to learn how to fight for the possible field work. She had no team to help her with that anymore, no team to do the field work so that she could sit safely behind her computers and no team to back her up when she was out there.

Although there was still Nyssa and-

“Fe-li-ci-ty,” Oliver said in a singsong, waving the two forks in front of her face. As soon as her eyes focused on him, he chuckled. “Are you awake?”

“I am,” Felicity assured with a smile. “I was just thinking about those people found on the island. They must have suffered through so much.”

Oliver nodded slowly, stroking her cheek. “Are you okay?”

Laughing, she shook her head and put any thoughts that didn’t revolve around Oliver to the back of her mind. She looked at the scrambled eggs, asking, “So that’s our breakfast, I guess?”

“It is,” Oliver said with a nod. “It’s the only thing I can cook. Rasia taught me because it is the perfect hangover breakfast. You might not have a hangover from alcohol, but after all the sleep you might have a sleep-hangover. You know, when you have slept so long that you feel even more tired and have the slight feeling of a hangover. That is a sleep-hangover.”

“Oliver, I might not be the most fluent speaker of colloquial language, but I think the word sleep-hangover even made it into my vocabulary,” Felicity replied with an amused smile, earning her an apologetic look from Oliver, but she shrugged it off.

“Come on, try the scrambled eggs. You will love them,” Oliver swore and held the plate a little closer to her.

The eggs looked great and they smelled delicious. She speared some of the food on her fork and put it in her mouth. The food was spicy as in burning-her-mouth-and-setting-her-whole-body-on-fire-spicy and there was this strange taste on her tongue. If she hadn’t had anything to make up for to Oliver, she would have probably spit the food out. But Felicity knew that he had tried hard to make her happy by cooking her breakfast and she had to totally make up for all the times she had stood him up, so she chewed and swallowed the eggs, even managed to smile at him.

“Delicious,” she said, still smiling bravely, although her mouth was burning like crazy and her tongue was becoming numb.

Oliver smiled proudly, starting to spear some of the food on his own fork and shoving it into his mouth. Before Felicity could fully admire how much of that spicy food he could eat at once, Oliver’s eyes widened and he started coughing, his face turning red. Hastily Felicity patted his back until Oliver’s breath returned to normal.

“Okay, how many forks do I have to eat to convince you that I love you?” she asked.

“I am more than impressed at your ability to smile despite of how awful it is,” he answered, coughing once more. “I don’t know how that happened. I did it the exact same way Rasia had told me. God, why didn’t you say anything?”

While Oliver took her fork and put the plate with both of their forks on the couch table, Felicity explained, “It was so nice of you to cook breakfast for me and I was so happy that you wanted to do that. And to be honest, a part of me thought it was supposed to taste like that.”

Chuckling, Oliver leaned over and pressed a kiss to her lips before he whispered, “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” she replied, “and I love you.”

“I love you, too.” Oliver kissed her once more before patting her thigh. “And now get dressed, I’m taking you out for breakfast.”

 

 

“I am not sure whether I will ever be able to get used to seeing you shoving that much food in you.”

Felicity lifted her gaze from the waffles she was busy with to look at Oliver. He had leaned back in his seat, both hands wrapped around his cup of coffee while staring at her with a smile on his lips.

“I am still impressed,” he added, the smile turning more and more into a grin. “I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone who can eat that much.”

“Usually I only eat that much for breakfast, not for lunch or dinner which might be part of the reason you haven’t realized that any sooner, and with that being said, I’m sure you will get used to seeing me eating that much after we have spent a few more nights together-“

Oliver perked his eyebrows, and Felicity bit her tongue, suddenly realizing the hidden meaning of her words.

“I mean… You know…” She took in a deep breath, trying to express herself more accurately. “We might spend more mornings together since we are together, so I guess you will see me have breakfast a few more times and you might get used to the view.”

“Well, I can certainly say that I am already used to the babble,” Oliver replied, taking one of her hands to lift it to his lips and kiss her knuckles shortly.

Felicity sent him a pointed glare while lifting the next waffle to her mouth and biting into it. Shaking his head, Oliver chuckled and took a sip from his coffee.

“Tommy called yesterday while you have been asleep,” he said then. “His lawyer checks the contract now, but at a first glance, everything seems fine. Maybe he can start planning the club this month.”

“That’s great,” Felicity replied, putting the last piece of the waffle into her mouth. “Any news on the name yet?”

“Nope, although he made a joke about calling the club ‘Green Arrow’ in case that-“

“Oliver?”

Felicity and Oliver both looked up at the same time to see a young woman approaching them. It took Felicity a few seconds before she recognized McKenna Hall. She looked so different with the short hair.

“McKenna,” Oliver said and got up to hug his friend. “It’s been almost three months since we have last seen each other. Where have you been? Tommy and I missed you at all the parties.”

“Yes, I’m sorry. My parents wanted me to think about what I really want from life and it should be more than going to parties every Saturday and getting banned from clubs for taking my clothes of. The explanation that there was no sign forbidding that didn’t seem to amuse them that much, so…”

Both of them chuckled before McKenna said, “I heard about Tommy’s father. I wanted to call, but figured there was nothing I could say to comfort him. How is he holding up?”

“He’s doing better. Most of credit goes to Laurel, I guess. She seems to be a great support for him. He wants to open a club now.”

McKenna nodded shortly. “You and Laurel…?”

“Broke up,” Oliver finished the sentence before stepping aside and turning a little, so he could gesture towards Felicity. “This is Felicity. She’s my… new… girlfriend.” Neither Felicity nor Oliver missed how strange the words ‘new girlfriend’ sounded, the ‘new’ more than the ‘girlfriend’. “Anyway, Felicity, this is McKenna, she’s a good friend.”

“Nice to meet you,” both girls said at the same time, shaking hands.

“Don’t you want to join us?” Felicity asked. “We have masses of food.”

“That’s really nice of you, but I don’t have much time. I just wanted to get myself some coffee,” she explained, waving with her takeaway coffee. “It was nice seeing you again, Oliver, and nice to meet you, Felicity.”

“It was nice to meet you, too,” Felicity replied with a smile before Oliver and McKenna hugged once more.

Before her time travel Felicity hadn’t got a chance to ever really meet McKenna, just like she hadn’t had a chance to meet Tommy. There were so many more people she had probably never met although they had been a part of Oliver’s life. Meeting them now was strange since she knew what could have happened to them if things had gone differently. On the other hand it was more than interesting to see how their lives were going to develop in this timeline.

Like: How would McKenna’s life develop, if she wasn’t shot by-

Felicity froze. Provided that McKenna was still going to choose to start a carrier at the police, she might still end up with a bullet in her body, forced to leave the police service for some time. She didn’t deserve that. Nobody deserved that, but at least McKenna could be saved.

Saving her meant stopping Helena from becoming the Huntress and preventing that from happening meant saving her fiancé. What had been his name? Michael? Michael something, Felicity remembered. She was going to figure out his surname and then he was going to get added to the list. When had he been killed? When…? That wasn’t important right now, Felicity decided. She just needed to save him and with that also save Helena and McKenna.

She was going to keep an eye on the Bertinelli family and their mafia-like methods of-

Mafia.

If she wasn’t in a restaurant, Felicity would actually bang her head against the tabletop for having been so dumb that she had forgotten a lot of the people who really needed to be included on her list of people that needed her saving. She had known from the start that the list she had made hadn’t been finished yet because of course she had known that she had forgotten some people. Michael, Helena and McKenna were just few of the people she now knew needed to be added to the list.

She needed to save the people on Dr. Ivo’s boat. How could it have taken the word ‘mafia’ to actually be thought to remind her of Anatoli and where he was held captive? Anatoli was part of the Bratva, still Felicity thought he deserved to be saved. He had helped them to get back Lyla, so Felicity felt like she owed him to save his life, even if he had only helped them because Oliver had saved him before.

And then Brick was still out there. He had killed Rebecca and since Rebecca’s death had led to Malcolm joining the League, becoming the Dark Archer and planning the Undertaking, Brick was also partly responsible for Merlyn’s death and the deaths of those Merlyn had killed. So Brick needed to pay for what he had done.

And what about-

The firm press of a pair of lips on hers pulled her from her thoughts abruptly. Felicity needed a short moment, in which she pulled back slightly, to notice that Oliver had sat down on the other side of the table again, but was now leaning across it to kiss her. Sighing she leaned into his lips, lifting one hand to let his stubble scratch her fingertips.

“Are you back here with me?” Oliver asked when they pulled apart. “You were lost in your thoughts once more. I was talking to you for the last three minutes.”

“Sorry,” Felicity hurried to say, gesturing around her head with one hand. “Things in here. I was just going through a few additions to the security program I am working on. You know, I forgot a few possible threads that might endanger the security of the servers, but now that I remember, I can work on making sure those threats will not get to the servers.”

Oliver nodded slowly. She couldn’t really see it, but Felicity was nonetheless sure that he was biting his tongue. Crunching his nose, he asked seriously, “I guess that means that you have to leave now?”

Felicity watched him closely. Oliver clearly wasn’t too delighted at the thought of her leaving already. Of course he wasn’t. Yesterday she had slept through their whole date and now she was planning on leaving again. Oliver’s trust in her was great; he had proven that yesterday when he hadn’t demanded an explanation for her weird appearance. Still, Felicity doubted that his trust was unlimited. It couldn’t and it shouldn’t be.

Besides, after her first successes she could certainly allow herself to spend some time with her boyfriend. She deserved that and she needed that. So she leaned forward, kissing him gently. Leaning back slightly, she replied, “I think those last days I worked enough to reward myself with a day off, especially because it’s Sunday and the two of us still have to have our movie night.”

“So…?” Oliver asked with a hopeful smile on his lips.

“So I suggest we will finish our breakfast and then go back to my apartment and watch movies.”

“I like that,” Oliver replied, pecking her lips.

As Felicity pulled the plate with the muffins closer, she glanced back at him and asked, “What did you want to say about Tommy’s club and Green Arrow?”

“Oh, Tommy was thinking about naming his club ‘Green Arrow’. In case that guy keeps helping catch criminals, he will be a vivid advertisement for the club,” Oliver explained.

Felicity perked her eyebrow. “Really?”

“That guy has been all over the news. Everyone in Starling City can connect something good to that name,” he said. “From a business point of view it would probably be a good idea, but I doubt that he will do that. Who knows what that guy is going to do in the future? According to the number of movies about heroes turning villains, I wouldn’t be surprised if he turned to the dark side one day.”

Felicity nodded slowly, not sure what to say about the idea of turning to the dark side, before cocking her head. “What exactly makes you think Green Arrow is a guy? There could be a lady behind that name.”

“Possible,” Oliver replied with a nod, suddenly grinning at her. “Actually, I’ve been telling everyone that you are Green Arrow because you are an IT genius, you behave strangely. You would fit that role perfectly.”

Felicity stared at him for a long moment before laughing nervously and throwing her napkin at him. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

“Yeah, well, the news refuted my assumption anyway,” Oliver sighed. “They say Green Arrow will most likely be a man in his forties, probably living in Starling City. Experts do not agree on whether he is married and lives with a family or if he is single, though.”

Felicity shook her head. “Let’s be honest, the media are not exactly the most trustworthy source for information like this.”

“You’re right,” Oliver replied. “So I will probably just continue to tell everyone you’re the Green Arrow. Hey, I’d be the main love interest of my city’s hero. That’s cool.”

“Continue and I throw my muffin at you,” Felicity groaned, waving with the muffin in front of his face.

God, Oliver had no idea how right he was, she thought, losing herself in his eyes as he laughed at her in amusement. He was the Green Arrow’s main love interest.

Maybe one day she could tell him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's the story of how Felicity saved Yao Fei, Shado & Slade and became Green Arrow.
> 
> So... What do you think? Is it worth a sequel? I'm still not sure and would appreciate some opinions on that.  
> Part 3 will most likely focus on saving Anatoli. That being said, the third part will feature the Bratva, hopefully more action, more developement on the Olicity relationship (part three will probably be rated as "mature") and a lot more...


End file.
